BELLEVUE, WA--(Marketwired - Sep 9, 2013) - 4G Americas reports that HSPA and LTE mobile broadband has grown to 192.5 million subscriptions in North America, representing 52 percent of the more than 373 million total mobile subscriptions in the region at the end of the second quarter of 2013, according to Informa Telecoms & Media research. The North American market remains in the leadership position of LTE market share worldwide with 51 percent of the world's 126 million connections at the end of June 2013. In Latin America, the HSPA and LTE mobile broadband market share has risen to 21 percent with 147 million connections of the total 693.7 million mobile connections, with the latter mostly GSM technology.

North America's LTE penetration rate is significantly higher than the rest of the world, with 18.3 percent LTE penetration compared to the next leading world regional market of Asia-Pacific with a penetration rate of 1.4 percent. All other world regions, including Western Europe at 0.7 percent, have an LTE market penetration rate below 1 percent.

"The U.S and Canada continue to lead the world in LTE connections with 51 percent market share," stated Chris Pearson, President of 4G Americas. "LTE has grown more than 300 percent in the 12 months ending in June in North America -- it's a tremendous mobile broadband growth story and 4G Americas looks forward to positive steps of government policy makers in spectrum allocation to allow this trend to continue."

North America

• 29 commercial LTE networks deployed in U.S. and Canada
• 15.7 million LTE connections at the end of June 2012; 64.8 million LTE connections as of June 2013 with 51 percent global market share
• 127.7 million HSPA connections
• 155.7 million CDMA connections with consecutive quarterly decline since March 2012

Latin America

Erasmo Rojas, 4G Americas' Director of Latin America and the Caribbean, noted that, "LTE is now commercial on 25 networks in 12 countries in the Latin America region and growth is now ramping up as more networks come alive." Rojas continued, "With 96 HSPA networks in 42 countries, penetration is increasing and customers are shifting from 2G to mobile broadband in order to live in our Internet connected society." He added, "More harmonized spectrum is absolutely critical to cope with governments' national broadband plans. With that said, there is a visible increase of end user data consumption as a result of the investment being made by operators in deploying advanced mobile broadband networks."

• 25 commercial LTE networks in 12 countries: Antigua & Barbuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Venezuela and the U.S. Virgin Islands
• 317,000 LTE connections as of June 2013
• Forecast 1.9 million LTE connections at the end of 2013

Global

"LTE subscriptions grew almost 350 percent year-over-year to the end of June 2013 and Informa forecasts that in 2018, LTE subscriptions will top one billion," remarked Kristin Paulin, Senior Research Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media. "The vast majority of subscriptions today are in the U.S., Korea and Japan; however, the growth momentum is in all regions of the world."

• 205 commercial LTE networks today; 250 commercial LTE networks expected by the end of 2013
• Over 440 total commitments to LTE deployment by wireless operators to date
• 75 million LTE connections at the end of 2012; 118 million as of May 2013, representing an increase of over 50 percent in five months and 126 million as of June 2013
• Over a doubling of connections forecast in 2013 to 166 million LTE connections
• LTE connections are forecast to reach 1 billion by early 2018

LTE-Advanced

Pearson said, "There is no stopping the incredible growth of LTE and its evolution to LTE-Advanced. We are already seeing the first commercial networks and devices in Korea with the launch of this next generation of LTE-Advanced wireless services using technology features such as Carrier Aggregation to enable the use of fragmented spectrum bands."

LTE-Advanced offers operators the opportunity to deploy many new network architecture innovations on their LTE networks; it is not a new technology, but rather an evolution with a possible menu of improvement options. LTE-Advanced technology utilizes features such as Carrier Aggregation, advanced Multiple-Input Multiple-Output antenna systems, Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) and Self-Organizing Networks (SON) that will allow for improved performance and service delivery, greater network capacity and faster network speeds. The limitations will occur if more spectrum resources are not allocated to allow for this evolution in the near future.

4G Americas maintains a current list of HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE Global Deployments on its website. For more information and to view a variety of statistical charts on the 3GPP family of technologies, visit www.4gamericas.org. LTE subscriber and forecast data is from Informa Telecoms & Media World Cellular Information Service (WCIS+).

Additional information on LTE and LTE-Advanced is available in free white papers on the 4G Americas website.

About 4G Americas: Unifying the Americas through Mobile Broadband Technology
4G Americas is an industry trade organization composed of leading telecommunications service providers and manufacturers. The organization's mission is to promote, facilitate and advocate for the deployment and adoption of the 3GPP family of technologies throughout the Americas. 4G Americas contributes to the successful commercial rollout of 3GPP mobile broadband technologies across the Americas and their place as the No. 1 technology family in the region. The organization aims to develop the expansive wireless ecosystem of networks, devices, and applications enabled by GSM and its evolution to LTE. 4G Americas is headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., with an office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Dallas. More information is available at www.4gamericas.org.

4G Americas' Board of Governors members include: Alcatel-Lucent, América Móvil, AT&T, BlackBerry, Cable & Wireless, CommScope, Entel, Ericsson, Gemalto, HP, Mavenir, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Openwave Mobility, Powerwave, Qualcomm, Rogers, T-Mobile USA and Telefónica.