Enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region are forecast to deploy 1.67 million of small cell units this year
The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region accounted for 58.6% of all non-residential small cells deployments last year, according to the latest report by the Small Cell Forum. Last year, a total of 892,000 small cells were deployed in the region. In total, 1.52 million non-residential small cells were deployed in 2017 globally.
For this year, the Small Cell Forum forecasts that a total of 1.67 million small cells will be deployed across APAC countries, which will represent 59.7% of global small cell deployments in 2018,
“In the non-residential market, APAC will dominate the regional deployment patterns, though with greater volatility than other regions. The region will see a more pronounced pre-5G slowing of growth, because many MNOs and large corporations in east Asia will aim to be early deployers, and will slow 4G expansion accordingly,” the report states.
By 2021, the APAC region is expected to deploy 2.62 million non-residential small cells, which will represent 54.2 percent of the total market of 4.83 million small cells deployments.
“In regional terms, in the early years (before 2020), the vast majority of cells deployed in dense environments are rolled out in APAC or North America,” the report adds.
Also, non-residential small cell deployments in the region will reach 4.13 million by 2025.
At a global level, early small cell deployments have been dominated by indoor systems (95% in 2015) but while indoor environments will remain the most common for densification, by 2025 the percentage of new cells deployed outdoors will rise to 28%, the study states.
According to a recent study by U.K-based firm IHS Markit, a total of 2.3 million small cell units shipped during 2017, resulting in an increase of 39% year over year. Revenue totalled $1.8 billion in 2017, up 20% year-on-year. This surge in revenues was mainly driven by deployments in rural and remote areas, particularly individual large-scale deployments in India by telecom operator Reliance Jio, as well as some new deployments in the Chinese market.
Last year, Airspan Networks had announced the integration of its small cells into the Reliance Jio’s LTE network. The Indian operator has already deployed thousands of Airspan small cells across India.
The Asia-Pacific region led all regions in terms of small cell deployments by service providers, mainly driven by activity in India and China, according to IHS MarkitThis region accounted for 56% of the global small cell market last year. Other key markets in 2017 were Canada, Japan and the U.S.
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