WCDMA to Take 3G Market 2006

July 9, 2004 - source: Telecoms Korea

An analysis projected that the WCDMA market will grow to $22.5bn in 2007 from $10.6bn last year.

The Institute of Information Technology Assessment said in its report,"WCDMA to Lead the global 3G and Handset Market" that the mobile market, which has been shrank since 2002, will be stabilized this year. The report predicted that the share of 3G system in the global mobile market would go up from 22.65% in 2003 to 53.98% in 2007.

WCDMA, which took 34.89% share of 3G systems in 2003, was projected to increase its share to 64.8% in 2007.

According to the report, 3G handset shipment will be increased from 125.68m in 2003 to 361m in 2008. The share of 3G handsets in the whole handset market was expected to go up to 60.83 % in 2008 from 21.86% in 2004 and 5.27% in 2003.

WCDMA subscribers amounted to 2.33m as of the end of 2003, with 1.99m to Japanese mobile operators such as NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone. However, the report said that WCDMA market would be facilitated in Western Europe as WCDMA services are launched in earnest this year.