Global UMTS Broadband Penetration to Reach 100 Million

Press Release - 6:45 am on January 4, 2007

The worldwide number of UMTS and WCDMA wireless data users is on the brink of reaching 100 million this New Years week, the UMTS Forum has announced, citing data collected by Wireless Intelligence, a mobile market research firm.

A further 50 million wireless users now subscribe to CDMA2000 and EV-DO-based data services, bringing the total of 3G cellular broadband customers to around 150 million.

“It’s been another incredible year for 3G and in particular for WCDMA,” said UMTS Forum chairman, Jean Pierre Bienaime. “On the basis of current growth rates we now estimate that worldwide 3G subcriber numbers for all technologies will comfortably exceed 275 million by the end of 2007.”

“Looking further ahead, by the end of the decade, we expect WCDMA to account for around three quarters of a global subscriber total approaching 800 million,” Bienaime went on to comment.

The UMTS forum is expecting the bulk of this growth to come from developing markets such as China, India, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, especially in sparsely populated areas where fixed-line broadband penetration remains poor.