CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Active Users increased more than 80% year-on-year

CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Active Users increased more than 80% year-on-year. The number of mobile phone subscriptions worldwide actively using data services via CDMA2000 1xEV-DO increased more than 80 percent year-on-year, according to the latest market study by Informa.

The figure surpassed 56 million at the end of 3Q07, up from 30.8 million a year earlier, to represent 15.3% of the world’s overall CDMA base. The increase was driven by the leading EV-DO operators — Verizon Wireless in United States and KDDI in Japan — which accounted for 60% or 33.8 million of the world total between them at the end of Q3 2007.

Boosted by a wider range of EV-DO enabled devices — 39 in total — Verizon’s total EV-DO subscriptions increased nearly three-fold in the year to September 2007. At the same time in the Land of the rising Sun, KDDI has the highest percentage of CDMA users that are also active users of data via EV-DO (56.4%). Innovative data services, as well as Japanese subscribers’ propensity to regularly upgrade to the latest handset models are the reasons for the operator’s success.

Informa also forecasts that the total number of subscriptions actively using data through EV-DO -- including Revision A and B -- is expected to exceed 85 million in 2008 and pass 115 million in 2009. As per the Informa’s Metrics, already more than 80 million subscriptions are actively using EV-DO-enabled handsets for voice services, which highlights that there is a sizeable potential market for operators to promote their advanced data services.

Regarding HSPA data subscriptions, Informa Telecoms & Media (News - Alert) predicts that it will reach nearly 50 million in 2008, before jumping to 107 million at the end of 2009 and nearly doubling again to 208 million in 2010. Growth will be driven by more operators deploying the technology, as well as an improved portfolio of HSPA-enabled devices.