Ericsson: “LTE to reach 35% of the world population by 2016”

Are you without LTE? You’re in good company, as currently LTE only reaches 2% of the world’s population, although it is expected to grow to 35% by the end of 2016. Fresh off of its breakup with Sony, Swedish telecom maker Ericsson shared these and other predictions about the growth of the mobile industry over the next five years.

Ericsson expects current WCDMA/HSPA wireless coverage to grow from 35% coverage today to 80% by 2016. Not surprisingly, they expect the bulk of that growth to take place in heavily populated areas, with metro and urban areas accounting for 60% of growth over the next half decade.

Ericsson also noted that they have been expanding their market share in the mobile infrastructure industry, supplying 36% of all mobile infrastructure equipment today, with a 43% market share in cities, putting them in an excellent position to provide core network technologies to the fastest growing markets.

The outlook for future profitability may be even rosier; Ericsson noted that by selling off its stock in Sony Ericsson it is now free to concentrate on licensing its 27,000 patents to the mobile industry, an area they expect will see large amounts of growth.

source: Ericsson via GigaOM