The big seven players in the Asia Pacific LTE macro base station market - Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks, Samsung and ZTE - comprise 94% of the market. However, based on wireless operator LTE contract awards and deployments, NPD In-Stat estimates that the dominant LTE infrastructure equipment provider changes annually.
In 2009, NEC was the dominant provider by controlling the majority of the NTT. In 2010, Ericsson was the dominant player with deployments that spread across many countries in the region. New NPD In-Stat research projects Samsung will be the dominant Asia Pacific LTE infrastructure provider in 2011, with over one-fourth of all LTE macro base station deployments in the Asia Pacific region.
Samsung is projected to finish 2011 with over 10,000 LTE base station deployments across the Asia Pacific region, according to NPD In-Stat. Unlike Ericsson, which has broad support across many operators in the region, Samsung's deployments are highly concentrated in South Korea with a few operators such as LG Uplus, KT and SK Telecom.
"It is important to note that the market is far from static," said Chris Kissel, analyst for NPD In-Stat. "Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei and ZTE will make strong gains in the region. By 2015, projections indicate that Huawei will lead the Asian region with the most LTE base station deployments. However, this is not yet certain as 17% of projected deployments are undecided as the infrastructure vendor of choice."
NPD In-Stat forecast that in 2015, Ericsson, Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent, and ZTE will each have at least 10% of newly-deployed LTE macro base station shipments. By 2015, there will be over one billion LTE POPs in Asia Pacific countries, the research firm indicated. China, India, Indonesia and Japan lead the region in LTE POPs.
In addition, NPD In-Stat pointed out that there were four vendors with double-digit share in the 2010 Asia Pacific market for LTE EPC/router/gateway equipment: Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Huawei, and Ericsson. Alcatel-Lucent clearly dominated with one third of the deployments. While Alcatel-Lucent is projected to maintain a leadership position, its dominance will weaken significantly, the research firm said.
From 2009 to 2015, the Asia Pacific LTE packet backhaul equipment investment by operator will account for over US$ 5 billion in revenues, according to NPD In-Stat. Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson and Huawei will account for at least 57% of the total spending.