The total wireless infrastructure market continues its downward spiral, but base station sales, particularly within Asia-Pacific, are helping keep equipment vendors busy, according to a new report.
Expenditures in the total wireless infrastructure equipment market slid nearly 19 percent in one year, falling to $15.4 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2012, said ABI Research.
However, macro base station expenditures provided a bright spot for the industry. During 2012's third quarter, base station expenditures reached $7.6 billion in Asia-Pacific, which accounted for more than half of the total market, said ABI. The region's base station's sales were more than 4x sales in Western Europe or North America. Further, base station expenditures in Asia-Pacific recorded year-over-year growth of 50 percent during the third quarter, while spending in North America grew only 27 percent during the same period.
"Expenditures this quarter on LTE base station equipment were at the same level as Q2 2012 and almost 3x higher than in Q3 2011, and WCDMA technologies also grew by 21 percent versus the year ago quarter," said Nick Marshall, ABI principal analyst, networks.
"ABI Research expects these trends to continue throughout 2013 with strong LTE growth followed by double-digit growth for WCDMA, against a background of a declining overall market as legacy technologies phase out," he said