ABI Research has been busy number-crunching figures from 2012. Hot on the heels of its cameraphone calculations comes a new report looking at 4G devices.
It reckons 103 million 4G LTE mobile devices were shipped in 2012. Of these, 91 million were mobile phones, 6 million were data dongles and 3.35 million were tablets. Almost 95% of 4G handsets are believed to have been shipped to the North American and Asia-Pacific markets.
The Apple iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy range of smartphones helped boost the 4G sales figures, although many handsets weren’t sold with a 4G network connection. That’s a marked contrast to the launch of 3G just under ten years ago, when almost every new 3G-compatible phone was connected onto a 3G service.
Phil Solis, Research Director at ABI Research, said “New sign-ups and conversion of 3G subscribers with LTE-capable handsets should gather pace in 2013 and 2014. By 2017 we are anticipating 785 LTE million subscribers, up from 58 million at the end of 2012 – generating US$14 billion [£8.7 billion] in annual service revenues.”
[Research]