Market research firm Infonetics Research has released its first quarter (1Q10) 2G/3G Mobile Infrastructure and Subscribers market share and forecast report.

According to Stéphane Téral, Infonetics principal analyst for mobile infrastructure at Infonetics Research: “It was a brutal first quarter for the mobile infrastructure market, with all segments down, marked by the absence of 3G rollouts in China, prolonged weakness in Latin America and Africa, and a continued pause in GSM upgrades and modernization.

“On the bright side, we are seeing sustainable 3G upgrades continuing in N. America and Western Europe, and W-CDMA and CDMA 2000 radio access network equipment revenues, while down sequentially, are up over the first quarter of 2009. The 3G W-CDMA journey has begun, and as a result, we expect to see a bump in the RAN equipment market, including an impressive remote radio head ramp-up as a bridge to LTE, and significant activity in the packet core segment. At some point, likely in the next year or so, GSM investments will have to kick in after so long a pause.”

Worldwide, all segments in the 2G and 3G mobile infrastructure market, including radio access network (RAN), mobile switching subsystem (MSS), packet core, and home location register (HLR) equipment, were down in 1Q10, with combined revenue dropping 19.5 per cent sequentially to $8.8bn (£6.1bn). While the GSM equipment market showed some signs of stabilization in Q409, it took a further plunge in Q110, down 37 per cent sequentially, and 47 per cent compared to a year ago. The W-CDMA equipment segment is up 25 per cent year-over-year, however, from Q109 to Q110.

Cisco, with the integration of Starent Networks, has become a serious contender in the mobile packet core segment, which is now a three-horse race between Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, and Cisco. On the vendor front for the overall market, Ericsson remains strong, Nokia Siemens Networks is recovering, and Alcatel-Lucent is back.

Infonetics mobile infrastructure report provides worldwide and regional market size, market share, analysis, and forecasts for GSM, W-CDMA, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, cdmaOne mobile subscribers, RAN equipment, MSS equipment, mobile packet core network equipment and HLR equipment.