Latin America accounted for 13% of WiMax equipment sales worldwide in the second quarter of 2006, according to research by US consulting firm Infonetics Research.
Latin America, trailed Asia Pacific, which had 40% of sales, Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) with 30% and North America with 17%.
In the first half of 2006, WiMax equipment sales grew 107% to US$141mn, according to the data, while revenues for LAN networks fell 7% to US$654mn in the same period.
"The mobility market is diversifying, with sales of wireless mesh and WiMax beginning to ramp up in addition to cellular and Wi-Fi technologies, giving service providers more options when deploying wireless networks," said Richard Webb, Infonetics Research analyst and lead author of the reports.
"Over the coming few years, these technologies will become increasingly interoperable, helping to edge us closer to wireless broadband," he said.
By 2009, the sales of WiMax equipment should reach US$3bn, according to the research.
"There is a lot of over-hype about WiMax," Gartner telecoms analyst Ken Dulaney told BNamericas recently. In Dulaney's opinion WiMax is still immature and will only gain widespread use in countries such as the US and Brazil by 2012 at the earliest and as late as 2015.
WiMax recently received a major boost when US mobile operator Sprint announced that it is committed to the technology, he said. If this giant company is banking its future on WiMax, it shows that the technology will be important, he said.
BNAmericas.com"
Posted to the site on 12th September 2006
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/19292.php