TrendForce: Expect 4G Smartphone Sales to Reach 450M Units This Year
The fourth-generation (4G) smartphone market is rapidly expanding, thanks in part to the explosive growth in the number of 4G network users worldwide.
Market intelligence provider TrendForce has predicted that sales of global 4G-enabled smartphones will reach 450 million units worldwide this year.
TrendForce noted that the “convenience and seamless connection of the (4G) mobile network encourages consumer usage, while the increasing penetration of 4G-enabled smartphones also drives user growth of 4G mobile networks.”
“4G LTE offers speedy and quality experience for consumers accessing cloud storage services,” Kelly Hsieh, TrendForce’s senior manager for mobile communication and end device research, said in a prepared statement. “The huge improvement in data transfer speed that comes with 4G networks allows more computing functions to take place in the cloud. Thus, demand for building of new data centers also rises as Google, IBM, HP and other cloud service providers increases their bandwidth needs.”
Market research firm Strategy Analytics also pointed out that 4G is dominant in markets such as the United States, where Verizon Wireless (VZ) saw 86 percent of its traffic on the LTE network last year, and South Korea, where operators carried 96 percent of their data traffic on 4G.
In addition, smartphones will grow to represent the majority of total smart connected device (SCD) shipments, according to International Data Corp (IDC).
The technology market research firm recently revealed smartphone shipments exceeded 1.3 billion last year and are expected to increase over the next few years as well.
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