Mobile Experts, a market intelligence provider for mobile communications, has released its latest small cells market report. The report that is commissioned by the Small Cell Forum (SCF), highlights that more than ten million small cells have now been shipped to operators around the globe, covering over 75 operators globally.
The report also forecasts that small cells will become an integral part of operator strategies, with deployments set to accelerate in the next 12 months. At the recent Mobile World Congress, SCF announced Release Five: Rural and Remote, which features various use cases for the deployment of small cells, highlighting how the technology will help operators realise an additional market opportunity of $163 billion.
This significant milestone shows how small cells are fast becoming key components in networks with over ten million units now in the market. This is being backed up by what we saw recently at Mobile World Congress with an incredible variety of announcements from operators, vendors and partners all pointing to a maturing market for a really exciting technology.
With careful cross-checking of industry sources, we’ve been able to verify that 10.2million small cells have now been shipped globally, with over ten million now deployed. The majority of these to date have been deployed in residential scenarios, but we have also seen a significant step upward in the enterprise and urban sectors. Our longstanding prediction that non-residential small cells will ramp up in 2015 is becoming a reality, as capacity and indoor coverage are now critical for operators.
