Reliance Jio intends to launch 4G services in India in December 2015, with full deployment taking three years. Potentially, that could further accelerate the uptake of LTE services in Asia, now lead by China.
There were 635 million Long Term Evolution subscriptions active worldwide at the end of March 2015, said Alan Hadden, Global mobile Suppliers Association VP, representing a gain of 382 million LTE subscriptions in 2014.
GSA forecasts the market will grow to over one billion LTE subscriptions worldwide by the end of 2015.
A similar forecast was issued by ABI Research. There will be nearly 1.37 billion 4G LTE subscribers worldwide by the end of 2015, up from nearly 650 million in 2014, ABI Research estimates.
LTE subscriptions increased by 123.7 million in the first quarter of 2015, 58 percent more than the 77.9 million 3G/WCDMA-HSPA subscriptions added in the same quarter.
The Asia-Pacific region increased its share of global LTE subscriptions to 49 percent, compared to 38 percent in 2013, according to GSA.
