In its latest IHS Infonetics Mobile Infrastructure Equipment report, IHS forecasts that global LTE mobile infrastructure revenue will peak at $23,3-billion in 2015 and then start to decline as a result of diminishing rollouts.
“As we anticipated, we’re reaching the peak of LTE rollouts, and LTE is now set to perform at $6-billion a quarter for some time as operators complete their major remaining rollouts,” says Stéphane Téral, research director for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at IHS.

LTE revenue totaled $6-billion worldwide in the first quarter of 2015 (1Q15), a 1% sequential decline, according to the research.

LTE rollouts were not strong enough in 1Q15 to fully offset the abyssal year-over-year decline of 2G/3G spending, resulting in an 8% sequential decline for the global 2G/3G/4G mobile infrastructure market, which came to $11-billion.

On a year-over-year basis, the 2G/3G/4G mobile infrastructure market was up 4% in 1Q15, driven by unabated TDD LTE activity in China