Abstract
The year 2006 was a remarkable one for WiMAX. In the Asia/Pacific region, the
South Korea version of mobile WiMAX- WiBro services- was commercialized in
June. Although the subscriber growth was below expectation due to limited
network coverage and lack of user devices, operators are working hard to grow
their businesses after the initial difficulties. In other parts of the region,
especially in emerging countries where the current household broadband
penetration rates were extremely low, governments quickly built a pro-WiMAX
regulatory framework. Operators also gained much confidence from the
Sprint-Nextel decision to adopt WiMAX for their 4G network, and were actively
conducting trials in hopes that WiMAX would lead to a lucrative wireless
broadband business. In general, a solid foundation was laid by the joint
efforts of market regulators, operators, and eager equipment vendors:
prominent growth of the WiMAX market is highly possible in the Asia/Pacific
region.
Measuring the market growth potential in numbers, from a lean base of 0.27
million WiMAX and Pre-WiMAX subscribers in 2006, total WiMAX subscribers in 16
Asia/Pacific countries are expected to reach 31.43 million by 2012. Another
7.63 million users are expected to adopt the WiMAX-backhauled Wi-Fi network by
2012. The sum of subscription revenue collected by operators for both services
will increase from US$438.9 million in 2006 to US$5092.0 million in 2012.
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