MWC: Android And Smartphones Power Mobile Market

“Operators in mature markets will continue implementing HSPA,” IDC states in the report. “WiMax will be a key driver in many emerging markets, while LTE will begin to take the limelight towards the end of the year and into 2011.”

To point, on 5 January, T-Mobile announced that it had updated its 3G network to HSPA 7.2, and that it anticipated being the first US carrier to launch the 3.5G technology HSPA+.

AT&T also completed a software upgrade to HSPA 7.2 in early January, and on 10 February, it announced that it had selected Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent as the supplier partners for its LTE network, scheduled for 2011.

While competitor Verizon plans to begin rolling out its LTE network later this year, Sprint has instead chosen the 4G technology WiMax. While an LTE network has yet to arrive in the US, as of December 2009, WiMax provider Clearwire, which Sprint owns the majority share of, claimed 173,000 subscribers, according to a 3 December report from ABI Research.

“The mobile sector is in transition from its prior focus on subscriber growth,” said Courtney Munroe, IDC group vice president of worldwide Telecommunications, in a statement on the report.

“The expanding demographics of smartphones and new operating systems, the arrival of mobile broadband and the explosive growth of applications and content are combining to reshape the landscape of mobile telecommunications,” Munroe continued.