Analyst firm Berg Insight says HSPA and LTE mobile technology accounted for 20.6% of the total number of broadband connections on PCs and tablets in Europe at the end of 2010.
The number of mobile broadband subscribers grew by 33% year-on-year in 2010 to 33.9 million and is expected to keep growing to 96 million by 2016. In North America the figures were lower, with mobile broadband accounting for just 13.2% of the total number of connections.
Lars Kurkinen, Telecom Analyst at Berg Insight, said “Austria is the most advanced market with a penetration rate of over 20%, corresponding to 46% of all broadband connections in the country. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Ireland and Portugal also have penetration rates above 10%. Belgium, Switzerland and Greece have on the other hand penetration rates of less than 3%”.
The lowest prices were found in the Baltic countries, Poland and Austria, while the highest prices were found in Switzerland and Spain.
Huawei was the world’s largest supplier of mobile broadband terminals, with a market share of 49%, followed by ZTE with a market share of 31%. Ericsson and Qualcomm dominated the market for embedded devices.
Berg Insight estimates that 92.7 million external mobile broadband devices were shipped in 2010, while shipments of embedded modules reached an estimated 9.5 million units.
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