WiMAX Subscriptions Surpass 20 Million Globally

According to Infonetics Research, WiMAX technology reached a total of 20 million subscribers at the end of 2Q11.

"Worldwide WiMAX subscribers passed the 20 million mark around the mid-point of 2011 and are on track to meet our forecast for around 25 million by the end of this year," said Richard Webb, directing analyst/WiMAX, Microwave & Mobile Devices at Infonetics Research. "Subscriber growth continues in all regions as WiMAX operators build their customer bases, but we have tracked notably strong growth in the United States, the Indian sub-continent, and Latin America. With the levels of operator activity and device ecosystem growing, we forecast WiMAX subscribers to surpass 100 million by the end of 2015."

In the first half of 2011 UQ Communications of Japan doubled its subscriber base, breaking the one million-subscriber mark in June. Also in Asia Pacific, new Malaysian WiMAX operator YTL, which just launched WiMAX services in November of 2010, had netted over 300,000 subscribers by June.