After several tough years, the market for macro cellular base stations will increase sharply from 1.8 million units in 2004 to 3.5 million units in 2009, according to a recent report by In-Stat. The study also showed that the number of worldwide cellular subscribers will hit 2.6 billion in 2009, up from 1.6 billion in 2004. However, the forthcoming growth will not be consistent, with the numbers bumping up and down, depending on which technologies are being deployed and where, said the firm.

“A combination of new technology, base station upgrades, and increases in needed capacity will drive the cellular base station market," says Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst. "While prices for infrastructure equipment continue to drop, the efficiency of the equipment increases, so less equipment is needed to handle a given number of subscribers. Still, increases in base station efficiency cannot keep up with the ever-increasing number of subscribers."

The report “Cellular Base Stations 2005: The Future Finally Looks Bright” by In-Stat found the following:

• In some cases, in the last five years, base station prices have dropped by a factor of 10.
• Carriers around the world are eagerly upgrading their equipment to support new high-speed data technologies (GPRS, EDGE, CDMA2000 EV-DO).

The report provides a status update on the worldwide market for cellular macro base stations and includes total base stations deployed (in service), new base stations shipped, and total base station revenue, including revenue for base station upgrades. Forecasts are broken out by geographic region, as well as by top-level technologies.