Research: 'Superphones,' mobile WiMAX to hit stride in five years

New research from Strategy Analytics and ABI Research indicates that mobile WiMAX services and the "superphone" devices by which those services are received will dominate their markets by 2015.

Mobile WiMAX will grow despite competition from more telco-centric fourth generation technology as LTE, ABI Research analyst Xavier Ortiz said, even though the segment's "growth has not been as early or as strong as many would have hoped several years ago" based partially, on "delays in the formation of the new (cable-backed) Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR)," he wrote.

The prospects for devices on which these new services will be received-being called superphones-are easier to discern. "We forecast global superphone shipments to grow 550 percent from 15 million units in 2010 to 100 million by 2015," wrote Alex Spektor, an SA analyst, who defined a superphone as a high-end smartphone with a big display and superfast processor.

For more:
- see this news release
- and this news release

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