Nearly Half a Billion LTE Connections Worldwide- Ovum

LTE subscriber numbers reached a new milestone with nearly half a billion connections worldwide at the end of 2014 according to data gathered by Ovum.

North America contributed significantly to global LTE connections with 33 percent or 164 million of the total 498 million LTE connections worldwide, although in mid year the Asia Pacific region surpassed the U.S. and Canada in the top spot in terms of total LTE connections.

"North America is still considered the global LTE leader. In terms of market share, penetration and coverage, the U.S. leads the world and remains at the head of the class in technology and spectrum innovation," stated Chris Pearson, President of 4G Americas.

"As expected, Asia Pacific has added a large amount of LTE connections over the past six months, passing North America for the first time."

LTE subscriptions represent 40 percent of all mobile connections in North America which compares to the next leading world regional market of Western Europe at nearly 13 percent and Asia with 10 percent market share for LTE.

Penetration of LTE in the U.S. with 164 million LTE connections was at 49 percent based on the country's population of about 318 million. Finally, LTE coverage in the U.S. has achieved more than 300 million of the population (referred to as POPs coverage). This means roughly 94 percent of the U.S. population has access to LTE service.

Another mobile broadband metric in the North American market includes 75 percent penetration of smart phones (Chetan Sharma, March 2015). Leading U.S. carriers, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, are looking toward LTE-Advanced to meet the growing demand for advanced data services. By 2020, nearly 60 percent of all LTE subscriptions will be on LTE-Advanced networks according to Ovum.