Since there has been greater than originally expected demand for LTE (Long Term Evolution) smartphones (and tablets), international vendors, including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and HTC are worried that their shipments are not enough to meet demand due to short supply of LTE solution chips from Qualcomm, currently the only provider of integrated multimode 3G/4G LTE baseband chips.
The main cellular carriers promoting LTE are Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint in the US market, Rogers in Canada, SK Telecom, KT and LG+ in South Korea and NTT DoCoMo in Japan. LTE mobile broadband services are also available in seven countries in Western Europe.
At present, there are 72 commercialized LTE networks in 37 countries, with an expected 134 networks in 57 countries by the end of 2012.
Global demand for LTE smartphones in 2012 is estimated to grow by 275 percent to 26 to 28 million units. LTE Tablets could represent as much as 6 percent of global LTE baseband shipments this year, adding another 5.8 million units. Verizon Wireless, currently the largest LTE smartphone and tablet purveyor, sold 2.9 million units in 1Q12 or 8 million units year- to-date.
Qualcomm's short supply of LTE chips is said to be because of insufficient 28nm foundry capacities and the shortage of LTE chips will not be eased until the fourth quarter of 2012. Samsung, LGE and Motorola are able to supply single-mode LTE basebands used on some LTE smartphones and tablets, but they have to employ separate 3G modems for fallback.
