Maravedis released its studies on the WiMAX chip market in 2009. They found that companies shipped 5 million mobile WiMAX chipsets in 2009.
“However despite the surge of mobile WiMAX device and chipset shipments, notably in Q4 09, the total WiMAX equipment market remained flat last year at US$1.36 billion,” said Maravedis Research Director Adlane Fellah. “The overall picture is mixed. Shipments of base stations decreased in 2009 and were impacted more deeply by the economic downturn, whereas device shipments, especially mobile WIMAX devices, grew at a rate of 147% Year-over-Year compared to 2008, correlating to the addition of 3.5 million WIMAX subscribers during the year,” he continued.
Beceem, Sequans and GCT were responsible for nearly 90 percent of the total chipset market. 48 percent of units shipped in 2009 were WiMAX modems while USB dongles and PC cards made up 43 percent of the chipset market.
The study also found that a lot of the chip makers are preparing for LTE. Many builders have tested chips and Sequans and Beceem will be testing LTE chips some time during 2010.
