Strategy Analytics predicts global cellular subscriptions to exceed 7 billion by the end of 2013. Asia Pacific continues to be the largest single region, representing half of the world's cellular subscriptions. LTE will be the most important growth category and global 4G subscriptions will soar over the next five years.

GSM/WCDMA/TD-SCDMA will dominate the wireless ecosystem, with LTE in particular gaining good traction over the next five years.

Cellular subscriptions are outpacing unique users. How many unique users does 2012's 6.6 billion subscriptions represent?

A combination of inactive accounts, individuals using multiple SIM cards in one handset, and the emergence of more multi-device users will drive the subscription/user gap even higher.

More than one quarter of all subscriptions will be on 3G or 4G networks by the end of 2012, with 2G systems witnessing their last year of subscription growth before declines commence in 2013

2012 will see the emergence of LTE as a global 4G technology with total connections growing from 9 fold year on year. The US, Japan and South Korea are the current growth engines for LTE, but which regions and countries will drive the next wave?

Greater scale in the global handset market will help to put LTE on a more rapid adoption curve than seen by WCDMA.

This report forecasts cellular subscriptions by protocol in 6 global regions and 13 major automotive countries from 2007 to 2017. Major protocol forecasts for each major automotive market include

? CDMA (CDMAOne / 1x / EV-DO),

? 2G GSM (GSM / GPRS / EDGE

? 3G GSM (WCDMA / HSDPA / HSUPA / HSPA+ / TD-SCDMA)

? 4G LTE (LTE)

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The growing availability of LTE smartphones has delivered a significant boost to the technology over the last 6 months and Strategy Analytics has upgraded its forecasts to one billion LTE connections by early 2017. The US, South Korea and Japan are leading the way in 2012, with greater global scale achieved in 2013. By 2017, LTE will generate over one -third of mobile service revenues. Strategy Analytics' report "Worldwide Cellular User Forecast: 2012-2017" provides global forecasts of subscription, technology and revenues, with detail for 82 individual countries.

There will be over 6.6 billion cellular subscriptions worldwide by the end of 2012.

The market continues to slow as a more regions approach levels of saturation. Over 80% of subscriptions added between 2012 and 2017, will come from Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.  

Cellular subscriptions are outpacing unique users by 48%

Worldwide cellular service revenues will increase by 4% in 2012, a slight decline on the 5% growth witnessed in 2011.

Cellular Subscriptions

(M)                                  2011       2012       2017

W Europe                         556.7      576.0     624.6

CE Europe                        537.6      556.3      583.9

N America                        363.2      386.5      493.2

CL America                      642.3      697.1      841.8

Asia-Pacific                     3019.4    3357.7    4453.4

M East & Africa                 920.3     1026.8    1462.6

Additional questions answered in this forecast include:

How large will the subscription/user gap be in 2013 and 2017?

What share of users and revenue will be from business in 2012? 2017?

How will usage minutes grow from its 2011 level through 2017?

How significant will TD-LTE be in the next five years?

How will users, subscriptions, postpaid vs prepaid, service revenues, churn rates, traffic and ARPU vary across the 82 countries covered?

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