Infonetics Research has released its Q2, 2010 2G/3G Mobile Infrastructure and Subscribers market share and forecast report.

The report provides worldwide and regional market size, market share, analysis, and forecasts for RAN (Radio Access Network) equipment (including base station controllers, macrocell, microcell and picocell base transceiver stations and W-CDMA remote radio head); mobile switching subsystem equipment (ncluding mobile switching centre, soft MSCs and wireless media gateways); mobile packet core network equipment (including GPRS gateway support nodes, serving GPRS support nodes and packet data serving nodes); HLR equipment; and mobile subscribers.

Subscribers and most equipment are tracked by technology: GSM, W-CDMA, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, cdmaOne. Companies tracked include Alcatel-Lucent, Apertio, Cisco (Starent), Ericsson, GENBAND, HP, Huawei, Motorola, NEC, Nokia Siemens, Nortel, UTStarcom and  ZTE.

Key findings include:

• In Q2, 2010, worldwide revenue for mobile switching subsystem (MSS) and packet core equipment grew, while RAN and home location register (HLR) equipment revenue declined. The end result was a relatively stable quarter for the overall mobile infrastructure market, down 0.9 per cent compared to Q1, 2010, from $8.8bn (£5.7bn) to $8.7bn.
• Ericsson retains the top position for overall macro RAN equipment revenue market share, although Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent each gained more or less 2 percentage points, pushing Nokia Siemens closer to Ericsson than it has been all year, and pushing ALU ahead of Huawei for the first time since early 2009.
• In Q2, 2010, aside from the fundamental lack of activity in China and India, the mobile infrastructure market was marked by sustainable 3G and CDMA upgrades in N. America, prolonged weakness in Europe across the board, and an increase in activity in Africa and Latin America.

“Its been a tough year so far for the mobile infrastructure market, mainly due to the absence of spending in China and India,” notes Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile and FMC infrastructure at Infonetics Research. “Last year, China spent like mad on its massive 3G rollout. This year, India was supposed to pick up some of the slack, but due to a combination of bans on Chinese vendors and a delayed spectrum auction, the spending virtually stopped in 2010. In fact, our analysis of capital expenditures by the three Chinese service providers in the first half of 2010 indicates that they have spent only 12 per cent of their planned 3G budgets. The postponements in GSM upgrades and modernization will need to be addressed soon, and we are likely to see some interesting pick-up in both 3G in China and 2G in India in the second half of 2010.”