Global WiMAX Market Take Off

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Global WiMAX Market, Take Off in 2009

January, 2009www.instat.com

2009 In-Stat All Rights Reserved | http://www.in-stat.com

Executive Summary

Mobile WiMAX subscriptions are expected to experience a rapid growth from 2009 to 2013. Across the

world, mobile WiMAX is having success with service providers including mobile operators, regional

telecommunications providers and multiple service operators, who wish to offer a mobile broadband

service via WiMAX without long-time waiting for LTE.

In 2008, WiMAX major deployments took place in US, India, Japan and Taiwan, province of China. In

US, Sprint embedded WiMAX in some of its notebooks, in hopes of offering customer a mobile WiMAX

option in the future. Tata Indicom Broadband (former VSNL), an Indian company, has successfullylaunched WiMAX broadband services in Bangalore, and expect to expand this service to 12 more cities

by the end of 2009. Another Indian operator BSNL has teamed up with Soma Networks to deploy one

of the largest mobile WiMAX network across three of Indias fastest growing telecom circles: Gujarat,

Goa-Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. In Japan, UQ Communication started WiMAX network

deployment on June 2008. Number of UQ's base stations has exceeded 1000 units by the end of 2008.

While in Taiwan, Ministry of Economic Affairs has already signed cooperation memoranda with a

number of WiMAX solution and service providers.

In-Stat believes that mobile WiMAX will ultimately outpace LTE in the future 5 years, due to timing of

network roll-outs. Interviews with operators and vendors indicate that 4 key features of WiMAX are

valued by adopters who have pushed the fast market growth in 2008, which are high bandwidth, lowcost, multiple receiving device and system openness.

According to In-Stat's research, six major vendors have dominated WiMAX equipment market. There

were approximately 94 commercial contracts signed in 2008. By comparing the quantity of each

vendor's commercial contract, Alcatel-Lucent was the biggest vendor, with 24 commercial contracts

worldwide, accounted for 25.5% of total contracts worldwide. Chinese vendor ZTE took the second

place, with 15 commercial deployments; Alvarion was listed the third, with 14 contracts, followed by

Huawei, Airspan and Motorola.

In-Stat estimates that, mobile WiMAX subscribers will exceed 85 million worldwide by the end of 2013.

In-Stat expects approximate 100 million mobile WiMAX-enabled portable device shipments in 2013,growing from 1.16 million in 2008. Subscription of mobile WiMAX will show a rapid growth from 2009 till

2013. In-Stat believes, the number will exceed 85.18 million by 2013 and will keep on growing fast.


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2009 In-Stat All Rights Reserved | http://www.in-stat.comPage 2

Figure 1. WiMAX Commercial Deployment Contracts Share, 2008

Source: In-Stat, 1/09

ZTE

16.0%Alvarion

14.9%

Huawei

13.8%

Airspan

12.8%

Motorola

8.5%

Others

8.5%

Alcatel-

Lucent

25.5%

Total=94


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2009 In-Stat All Rights Reserved | http://www.in-stat.com Page 3

Table of Contents

Executive Summary................................................................................................................................................... 1WiMAX Market Update 2008 ..................................................................................................................................... 4

USA....................................................................................................................................................................... 4Japan..................................................................................................................................................................... 4India....................................................................................................................................................................... 5Taiwan China ........................................................................................................................................................ 5

Technology Evolution of WiMAX to 4G ..................................................................................................................... 6What WiMAX could Provide for Operators ................................................................................................................ 8Vendors' Market Performance in 2008 ...................................................................................................................... 9Vendor Capability Comparison Matrix..................................................................................................................... 12Opportunity and Challenge Analysis for Vendors.................................................................................................... 14Market Forecast....................................................................................................................................................... 15List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................................... 16List of Figures .......................................................................................................................................................... 16Related In-Stat Reports ........................................................................................................................................... 17


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WiMAX Market Update 2008

WiMAX has experienced a fast growth in 2008; among this year more than 90 WiMAX commercial

contracts have been signed worldwide, according to In-Stat's statistics. America, Japan, India and

Taiwan China have become the pioneers for WiMAX adoption.

USA

Sprint Nextel announced in mid-2006 that it would invest about US$ 5 billion in a WiMAX technology

build out over the next few years. On May 7, 2008, Sprint, Clearwire, Google, Intel, Comcast, and Time

Warner announced a pooling of 2.5 GHz spectrum and formation of a new company named Clearwire.

The world's largest chip maker Intel has invested $1.6 bill ion in Clearwire, hoping to open a new path to

the Internet and create new markets for its chips. Other than Verizon, few companies are able to offerboth mobile Internet access and high-speed Internet connections for household. Comcast invested $1

billion in Clearwire, and other cable operators put in $650 million more, in hopes of offering customers a

mobile WiMAX option in the future.

The new company hopes to benefit from combined services and network resources, which are

considered as strong weapons against its competitors. The cable companies will provide media

services to other partners in exchange of access to the wireless network as a Mobile virtual network

operator. Google will contribute Android handset device development and applications and will receive

revenue share from advertising and other services. Clearwire hopes WiMAX eventually will displace

cellular data networks operated by AT&T and Verizon.

On October 8th, 2008, Sprint launched WiMAX in Baltimore and showed off several new laptops that

will have WiMAX chips embedded. Baltimore is the first city to operate WiMAX service, and it's

expected for WIMAX to launch in more cities soon, such as Chicago and Philadelphia.

Sprint Nextel plans to expand its WiMAX enabled notebooks to 25-40 cities in the first quarter of 2009,

with plans to launch WiMAX handsets in the near future. Sprint Nextel expects the number of WiMAX

subscribers in the US up to 60 million in 2009 and further expand to 120 million in 2010.

Japan

UQ is jointly owned by KDDI, Intel, JR East, Kyocera, Daiwa and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ,

and intends to begin offering commercial WiMAX service in Japan from 2009.

UQ Communication got Japan national wide wireless broadband license in December 2007. And UQ

started WiMAX network deployment on June 2008. Number of UQ's base stations has exceeded 1000

by the end of 2008. UQ began testing the network in March 2008, and the service is expected to be

available for commercial use in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya in 2009.


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India

Tata Communication (formerly VSNL) firstly launched WiMAX in December 2007 in Bangalore for

enterprise applications. As of July 2008, Tata has deployed WiMAX networks in 3 cities (Bangalore andtwo other cities in North India) for consumers and 40 cities across India for enterprise services. Tata

Communication plans to invest more than $100 million to cover 115 cities by March 2009. Their goal is

to provide 20 million broadband connections by 2010.

BSNL is another WiMAX adopter in India, which is the dominanting fixed line service provider, having

captured 80% of the fixed telephone market and nearly 50% of the broadband market. BSNL has

teamed up with Soma Networks to deploy one of the largest mobile WiMAX network across three of

Indias fastest growing telecom circles of Gujarat, Goa-Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. In May 2008,

the company announced the first WiMAX commercial roll-out in Goa state. As per the BSNL

spokesperson, 300 base stations have been deployed by the end of 2008.

Taiwan China

Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with

US-based WiMAX operator Clearwire for cooperation in the WiMAX industry on December 17, 2008.

The MOEA has already signed cooperation memoranda with a number of WiMAX solution and service

providers. The government tends to push the industry development of WiMAX in Taiwan.

Up to now, 6 WiMAX licenses have been released in Taiwan, Those receiving licenses were: First

International Telecom Corporation, Global Mobile, VMAX Telecom, TATUNG InfoComm and Vastar

Cable TV System and Far Eastone Telecom. Currently, several WiMAX networks are under building in

Taiwan.


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Technology Evolution of WiMAX to 4G

Mobile WiMAX based upon 802.16e-2005 has been accepted as IP-OFDMA for inclusion as the sixth

wireless link system under IMT-2000. This can hasten acceptance by regulatory authorities and

operators for use in cellular spectrum. WiMAX 802.16m will be proposed for IMT-Advanced 4G.

Table 1. LTE, LTE Advanced, 802.16e WiMAX, and 802.16m WiMAX Matrix

802.16e WiMAX 802.16m WiMAX LTE LTE Advanced

Technology Overview IEEE's scalable OFDMA-based

mobile enhancement to fixed

WIMAX IEEE 802.16d.

Enhances 802.16e WiMAX to

ensure 100Mbps mobile and

1Gbps stationary throughputs in

order to guarantee that it meets

the requirements of the IMT-

Advanced to be considered a

4G technology.

3GPP's OFDMA-based next-

generation technology follow-up

to HSPA, utilizing SC-FDMA on

the uplink.

Enhances 802.16e WiMAX to

ensure 100Mbps mobile and

1Gbps stationary throughputs in

order to guarantee that it meets

the requirements of the IMT-

Advanced to be considered a

4G technology.

Channel Bandwidth Current Mobile WiMAX Forum

profiles include support for5MHz, 7MHz, 8.75MHz,

10MHz. The IEEE 802.16e

standard supports bandwidths

ranging from 1.25 to 20MHz.

Expected to support similar

channel bandwidths to 802.16e,including 5, 7, 8.75, 10 and

20MHz. May support larger

bandwidth sizes such as 40MHz

up to 100MHz to help drive up

throughput possibilities.

Expected to support multi-

carrier operation.

1.4MHz, 3MHz, 5MHz, 10MHz,

15MHz and 20MHz in both theuplink and downlink. Operation

in paired and unpaired spectrum

shall be supported.

Same as LTE, with additional

support for larger channelbandwidths of 20MHz+,such as

50MHz and 100MHz.

Modulation Mobile WiMAX profiles are

currently all TDD. But FDD

profile will be released in near

future for 700MHz. FDD profiles

also expected for the 2.496GHz

to 2.690GHz (2.5GHz) band,

and the AWS band in the US.

Will support TDD and FDD. Will support both FDD and TDD. Will support FDD and TDD.

Theoretical Throughputs Typically 30Mbps of capacity

within a cell radius of up to

3kms, with per userthroughputs of 15Mbps. Per

user throughputs also

dependent on the number of

users sharing the channel, as

well as operator limits on per

100Mbps when mobile, 1Gbps

when stationary

100+Mbps on downlink,

50+Mbps on uplink, utilizing a

20MHz channel bandwidth.

100Mbps when mobile, 1Gbps

when stationary

1st Commercially

Deployed Network

2006-WiBro Expected 2011/2012 Expected 2009 Expected 2011/2012

Estimated # of Network

Deployments*

49

Base Station Upgrade

Process

Greenfield Expected to involve software

upgrade to 802.16e mobile

WiMAX base stations. May

require some hardware

upgrades/add-ons as well.

Backhaul capacity will probably

have to be increased.

Expected to require some

hardware add-ons/upgrades to

existing cellular base stations

since technology is extremely

different from all cellular

technologies. Will vary by

operator based on

type/technology of infrastructure

carrier has deployed. Carriers

Expected to involve software

upgrade to LTE base stations.

May require some hardware

upgrades/add-ons as well.

Backhaul capacity may also have

to be increased.

*Note: Network deployment numbers based on data from In-Stat's 2Q08 3G/4G Tracker Service.


About technology evolution, the road to 4G cleared a bit, with ultra-mobile broadband (UMB) left

publicly by the roadside, narrowing the path into two technologies. However, the two remaining

technologies on the road to 4G, LTE, and WiMAX, still bring much speculation and confusion. Generally,

4G technologies are considered those which are expected to meet the ITUs IMT-Advanced

requirements, i.e., IEEE 802.16m WiMAX and LTE Advanced (the comparison is illustrated in Table 1).


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with LTE Advanced and 802.16m WiMAX being the enhanced versions of LTE and 802.16e WiMAX,

respectively. Both LTE Advanced and 802.16m WiMAX are being specially crafted to offer 100Mbps

mobile throughput and 1Gbps stationary throughput; these extremely high throughput capabilities are

expected to be a critical part of the ITUs IMT-Advanced requirements.

Figure 2. Evolution of 3G to 4G technology

3GEV-DO HSPA

4GEV-DO

AdvancedWiMAX

Coverage Speed

LTE


3GEV-DO HSPA

4GEV-DO

AdvancedWiMAX

Coverage Speed

LTE


Both 4G technologies, meaning those technologies that meet the requirements of IMT-Advanced, are

far from being commercially deployed. The standards themselves (i.e., 802.16m WiMAX and LTE

Advanced) are still being developed by IEEE and 3GPP, with expectations that they will be completed

in 2010/2011 and rolling out in 2012/2013. However, 802.16e mobile WiMAX has already started to

come on the scene as mentioned in the last chapter. LTE proponents have jumped up their efforts tospeed up development, so that they are not left behind. LTE trials and testing have significantly picked

up in 2008. Many infrastructure vendors have utilized their mobile WiMAX development platforms for

LTE development and testing, since the two technologies are similar in many ways. In-Stat believes

that mobile WiMAX will ultimately outpace LTE in the future 5 years, due to timing of network roll-outs.


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What WiMAX could Provide for Operators

Interviews with operators and vendors indicate that 4 key features of WiMAX are valued by adopters

which have pushed the fast market growth in 2008:

High bandwidth

Low cost

Multiple receiving device

System openness

For mobile operators, WiMAX is able to improve the total capacity of mobile network. Meanwhile, they

could utilize WiMAX to provide internet-oriented services to win more mobile users. Different from other

technologies, WiMAX network can be small at the very early setup stage. After that, network can beeasily expanded or updated according to operator's plan. Due to the benefit of low cost and flexibility of

networking building, operators could get return quickly in short term than other technologies which need

large scope of network building from the beginning.

For fixed line operators, they want to develop mobile service to compete with mobile operators based

on large user base of fixed line. WiMAX could work as the replacement fixed cable or DSL, providing

mobile data and voice service and competing against cellular operators.


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Vendors' Market Performance in 2008

Six major vendors have dominated the WiMAX deployment market in 2008. Considering quantity of

each vendor's commercial contract, Alcatel-Lucent was the biggest vendor, with 24 contracts worldwide,

accounted for 25.5% of the WiMAX commercial deployment market. Chinese vendor ZTE took the

second place, accounted for 16% of the market share, with 15 commercial deployments and Alvarion

listed the third, with 14 contracts, followed by Huawei, Airspan and Motorola. Other vendors, including

Samsung, Nortel, etc. had 8 deployments in all.

Based on In-Stat's research, total number of commercial contracts in 2008 was 94. It is worthy of

mentioning that, ZTE has the most 2.5 GHz commercial contracts among top 6 vendors. As is known,

WiMAX network over 3.5 GHz or higher frequency is hard to satisfy mobile access, which means 2.5

GHz is more suitable for mobile transmission.

Figure 3. WiMAX Commercial Deployment Contracts Share, 2008


ZTE

16.0%Alvarion14.9%

Huawei

13.8%

Airspan

12.8%

Motorola

8.5%

Others

8.5%

Alcatel-

Lucent

25.5%

Total=94

According to In-Stat's investigation, WiMAX deployment contract in 2008 are listed in Table 2 as follow.


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Table 2. WiMAX Commercial Deployment Contract, 2008

Equipment Vendor Frequency Region Country Service Provider Date Value

2.3 G Aisa Malaysia PacketOne 2008-1-1

3.5 G Europe The Netherlands Worldmax 2008-2-1

5 G Caribbean and Latin America BOLIVIA TIM/Entel 2008-4-15 G Caribbean and Latin America BOLIVIA Nuevatel 2008-5-1

2.5 G Asia Pacific China Taiwan Tatung InfoComm 2008-6-3

3.5G North America UNITED STATES iCON Communications 2008-10-21

3.5 G Europe Croatia WiMAX Telecom 2008-3-19

3.5 G Europe Italy ARIA 2008-11-5

2.5 G Europe Azerbaijan Delta Telecom 2008-9-1

2.5 G North Africa Libya Libya Telecom and Technology 2008-5-13

2.3 G Eastern Europe Georgia VTEL Holding Ltd. 2008-7-24

2.5 G North American UNITED STATES Craig Wireless 2008-4-2

2.3 G

3.5 GSouth America Venezuela

2.5 G Asia Lebanon

3.5 G Africa Angola

3.5 G Europe Moldavia

2.3 G Asia Laos

2.5 G Asia Mongolia

3.5 G South America Argentina

3.5 G Europe France

3.5 G Europe UK

3.5 G Europe Croatia

2.3 G Asia Cambodia

3.5 G Europe Hungary

2.5 G Asia China China Telecom & CNC 2008-1-8

2.5 G North Africa Libya Libya Telecom and Technology 2008-5-8

2.5 G Europe Russia Domus 2008-1-8

2.5 G East Africa Uganda TMP 2008-9-8

2.5 G Africa Zambia CopperNET 2008-8-8

2.5 G Africa Zimbabwe Econet 2008-8-8

2.5 G North Africa Mauritania Chinguitel 2008-9-8

3.5 G South America Colombia Emcali 2008-7-8

2.5 G Asia Armenia TS Russia 2008-12-8

2.5 G Asia Siberian TS Russia 2008-12-8

2.5 G America United States Sprint 2008-12-1

3.5 G America Dominican Tricom 2008-12-1

3.5 G Asia Saudi Arabia

2.5 G Europe Italy2.3 G Asia KAZAKHSTAN

2.5 G North America UNITED STATES TDS Telecom 2008-1-22

2.5 G North America UNITED STATES DigitalBridge Communications 2008-6-30

3.5 G Eastern EuropeMACEDONIA,

THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OFNeotel 2008-9-8

3.5 G North America UNITED STATES Towerstream 2008-10-2

3.5 G Western Europe FRANCE Altitude 2008-9-1

3.5 G Western Europe SPAIN Iberbanda 2008-3-3

3.3 G South Africa KENYA Access Kenya 2008-9-25

5 G South Africa KENYA Kenya Data Networks expansion 2008-1-8

2.5 G America Costa Rica ICE 2008-12-29 6 Million USD

3.5 G Europe Italy LinkeM Spa 2008-12-23

2.5 G Aisa India Bharti Airtel 2008-6-16

3.5 G Europe Lithuania Balticum TV 2008-4-5

3.5 G Europe Denmark Elro

2.5 G Asia TAIWAN, PROVINCE OF CHINA ITRI

ALCATEL LUCENT

ALVARION

ZTE


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2.3 G Asia Pacific MALAYSIA Asiaspace 2008-6-1

2.5 G Asia Pacific PHILIPPINES Globe 2008-6-1

2.5 G Asia Pacific KAZAKHSTAN KT 2008-3-1

2.5 G Middle East and Africa SOUTH AFRICA Vodacom 2008-3-1

2.5 G Middle East and Africa UGANDA UTL 2008-8-1

2.5 G Middle East and Africa SAUDI ARABIA Mobily 2008-9-13.5 G Caribbean and Latin America ECUADOR Andinatel 2008-4-1

3.5 G Eastern Europe HUNGARY Invitel 2008-6-1

3.5 G Middle East and Africa PAKISTAN Augere 2008-6-1

3.5 G Middle East and Africa Congo HITS 2008-6-1

3.5 G Middle East and Africa MOROCCO MediTel 2008-9-1

3.5 G Middle East and Africa MEXICO IBW 2008-9-1

2.5 G Asia Pacific KAZAKHSTAN NURSAT 2008-3-1

3.5 G Africa EQUATORIAL GUINEA HITS 2008-6-1

2.5 G Asia Pacific ARMENIA Comstar 2008-1-28

3.5 G Asia Pacific AUSTRALIA Internode 2008-1-25

3.5 G Western Europe UNITED KINGDOM Pipex 2008-1-14

5 G Eastern Europe UKRAINEUkraine National Committee of

Telecommunications Regulations2008-1-15

5 G Middle East and Africa SAUDI ARABIA Saudi Telecom 2008-7-21

5.4 G Middle East and Africa BOTSWANA Netspread 2008-9-18

4.9 G Middle East and Africa PAKISTAN City District Government Karachi 2008-7-17

3.5 G Latin America Dominican Republic Tricom 2008-3-12 1.7 Million USD

3.5 G Europe Norway Telenor 2008-9-26

5.4 G Africa Botswana Netspread 2008-9-18

3.6 3.8 G Asia Armenian Comstar-United TeleSystems 2008-2-5

3.5 G Aisa Jordan Umniah 2008-7-1

2.3 G Asia Pacific MALAYSIA REDtone 2008-8-20

5 G Caribbean and Latin America MEXICO Axtel 2008-1-11

3.5 G Asia Saudi Arabia Atheeb 2008-3-20 165 million USD

3.5 G Asia Pakistan wi-tribe Pakistan limited 2008-10-6 30 million USD

2.5 G Asia China Taiwan Fitel 2008-4-9 19.7 million USD

3.5 G Middle East and Africa Pakistan Wateen 2008-10-30

3.5 G Europe France TDF 2008-6-17

Asia Jordan MADA Communications 2008-11-26

5 G Caribbean and Latin America BRAZIL TVA 2008-3-1

5 G North America UNITED STATES Quad Cities Online 2008-9-1

5 G Asia Pacific TAIWAN, PROVINCE OF CHINA CTV Infotech 2008-8-12

5 G North America UNITED STATES Stephouse Networks 2008-7-14

2.5 G North America UNITED STATES Sprint Nextel 2008-9-29

2.52.7 G Eastern Europe RUSSIAN FEDERATION Scartel LLC 2008-9-2

APERTO 5 G Middle East and Africa ALGERIA Icosnet 2008-5-20

TELSIMA 5 G Asia Pacific INDIA Tata Communications 2008-3-4 600 Million USD

Source: In-Stat 1/09

MOTOROLA

NORTEL

PROXIM WIRELESS

SAMSUNG

AIRSPAN

HUAWEI


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Vendor Capability Comparison Matrix

This chapter will provide a comparison among different WiMAX equipment vendors. After interviews

with WiMAX operators and vendors, In-Stat has illustrated these vendors in two directions: 1) X axis in

Figure 4, "Competitive Capability"; 2) Y axis, "Potential for Leading Vendor".

Figure 4. Vendor Capability Evolution Matrix

PotentialforLeading

Vendor

Competitive Capability

ZTE

Airspan

Huawei

Alcatel-

LucentMotorola

Alvarion


PotentialforLeading

Vendor

Competitive Capability

ZTE

Airspan

Huawei

Alcatel-

LucentMotorola

Alvarion


The scoring factors for "Competitive Capability" and "Potential for Leading Vendor" are listed as follows,

and the detail scores are illustrated in Table 3.

"Competitive Capability" stems from:

Market Share (commercial deployment): According to our investigation, we ranked market share by

number of WiMAX deployment commercial contracts. In this part, Alcatel-Lucent, ZTE and Alvarion

are top3 players in the emerging market.

Commercial Trial: For those contracts of commercial trial but not been deployed yet are alsoconsidered into capability evaluation. ZTE and Huawei have the most trial contracts than other

vendors, some of them are possible to become commercial shortly.

Presence on Global Operators' side: Number and presence on global operators are considered in

this part. Alcatel-Lucent, ZTE and Huawei have higher scores.

"Potential for Leading Vendor" stem from:


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Cooperation with Big operators: Cooperating with Big global operators means more subscriber

covered and higher qualification needed. In this category, we considered Alcatel-Lucent, ZTE and

Huawei as top vendors.

Product richness and E-E capability: In the category, we are focusing on end devices and E-E

solutions. ZTE is the best among several vendors. It is worth mention that, ZTE won the bid and

became the first provider of Sprint & Nextel on WiMAX terminal in Feb. 2007, including USB Dongle,

Express Card and CPE Modem. In addition, ZTE has WiMAX equipment and other cellular system

products.

Technology evolution: We do not only evaluate the technology competiveness based on current

maturity of WiMAX technology, but also vendors' continued investment in the R&D on WiMAX and even

LTE etc.

Table 3. Scoring Factors for WiMAX Equipment Vendors

AirspanAlcatel-

LucentAlvarion Huawei Motorola ZTE

Market Share

(Commercial Deployment)2.5 5 3 3 2.5 4

Commercial Trial 2 4.5 3 4.5 3

Presence on Global Operators' Side 2 5 3 5 2

6.5 14.5 9 12.5 7.5 14

Cooperation with Big Operators 3 5 3 4 2

Product Richness and E-E Capability 2 4 2 4.5 3

Technology Evolution 3 4 3 5 4

8 13 8 13.5 9 15


Competitive

Capability

Potential for

Leading

Vendor

Scoring Factors

Total

Total


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Opportunity and Challenge Analysis for Vendors

Since WiMAX could provide an alternative (low cost, high bandwidth, multiple receiving device and

system openness) access for mobile broadband, WIMAX could bring market opportunity and challenge

as well:

Big market potential: the exploding of mobile Internet has high demand on mobile access bandwidth

per user, rather than network coverage, which is mostly well in the world. WiMAX provide a cost-

efficient and flexible solution for potential mobile internet market, and an opportunity to grow

business for Telecom vendors.

Due to the system openness and the shared IPR pool, the entry threshold of WiMAX industry is

lowed, which will hence lower the producing cost for equipment and access device.

However, for the big telecom vendor like ZTE and Alcatel-Lucent, they may provide cellular network

products like GSM and CDMA. Therefore they have to balance the development of WiMAX and

tradition 2G/3G system equipment, so that they do not wish to replace its 2G network by its own low-

cost WiMAX solution.


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Market Forecast

The subscription of mobile WiMAX will show a rapid growth from 2009 until 2013. Support from

operators worldwide and development of technology maturity are the crucial drivers of WiMAX growth.

In-Stat believes that, the number will exceed 85 million in 2009 and will keep on growing fast. Looking

at different regions, as shown in Figure 5, Asia / Pacific and North America will be the key drivers of

WiMAX subscription growth, while Asia will have over 30 million subscribers by 2013.

Figure 5. Mobile WiMAX Subscription Forecast by Region (Thousands)

0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

80,000

90,000

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Middle East and Africa

Caribbean and Latin America

North America

Western Europe

Eastern Europe

Asia/Pacific


Mobile WiMAX deployments started in 2006. With 3 years of development, shipment of mobile PCs with

embedded WiMAX was 79.58 thousands in 2008 and the number is expected to increase to 81.83

million by 2013. Meanwhile, shipments of external clients, handsets as well as other portable devices

will increase rapidly in 2009, which can be considered as the year for WiMAX to take off. In-Stat

expects nearly 100 million mobile WiMAX-enabled portable device shipments by the end of 2013 as

listed in Table 4 below.

Table 4. Mobile WiMAX Device Forecast (Thousands)Shipments (in Thousands)

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

External Clients 99.3 284.1 2,207.20 4,687.00 4,817.10 5,105.40 5,513.30

Embedded Mobile PCs 0.5 795.8 4,807.00 16,013.70 34,253.80 546,845.60 81,826.30

Handsets 7.3 37.6 391.20 1,661.10 4,873.10 10,738.20 1,842.90

Other Portable Devices 0.1 19.2 169.2 955.6 3,050.00 6,180.30 10,387.60

Total 107.1 1164.7 7,428.60 21,863.40 44,028.00 74,769.50 99,570.10



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List of Tables

Table 1. LTE, LTE Advanced, 802.16e WiMAX, and 802.16m WiMAX Matrix.................................................... 6Table 2. WiMAX Commercial Deployment Contract, 2008................................................................................ 10Table 3. Scoring Factors for WiMAX Equipment Vendors................................................................................. 13Table 4. Mobile WiMAX Device Forecast (Thousands) ..................................................................................... 15

List of Figures

Figure 1. WiMAX Commercial Deployment Contracts Share, 2008 ..................................................................... 2Figure 2. Evolution of 3G to 4G technology .......................................................................................................... 7Figure 3. WiMAX Commercial Deployment Contracts Share, 2008 ..................................................................... 9Figure 4. Vendor Capability Evolution Matrix ...................................................................................................... 12Figure 5. Mobile WiMAX Subscription Forecast by Region (Thousands)........................................................... 15


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Related In-Stat Reports

The Road to 4G: Will LTE, UMB and WiMAX Just Be Stops Along the Way?

The Road to 4G: LTE and WiMAX Lead the Way Worldwide

WiMAX Chipset Market: Faith in Mobile WiMAX Drives Expected Volume Growth Worldwide

The WiMAX Chipset Market: Mobile Is Where It's At

WiBro in Korea: Ambitious Launch - Turbulent Take Off

WiMAX Equipment Market Share - Waiting to Sprint


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