Femtocells and enterprise femtocells are going to help mobile phone operators provide indoor coverage to their subscribers, while at the same time, relieve network backhaul and infrastructure costs, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.
Although all segments of the emerging compact base station market -- which includes indoor and metropolitan picocells as well as microcells -- are expected to show growth, femtocells and enterprise femtocells will have the most significant increase in unit shipments.
In-Stat forecasts that annual femtocell shipments will reach 31.8 million by 2014.
"Enterprise femtocells may even save businesses money. If PBX features are incorporated into enterprise femtocells, they could displace many wireless PBX and IP PBX installs, as well as the purchase of wireline phones," says Allen Nogee, Principal Analyst at In-Stat.
Additionally, In-Stat expects consumer demand for femtocells to be strong, because they allow better in-home cell coverage, which has been especially lacking in the U.S. market.
In-Stat's market study found the following:
- Worldwide annual enterprise femtocell revenue CAGR will be 125.7 percent from 2009-2014.
- Worldwide metropolitan picocell (carrier installed) unit forecast CAGR is projected at 378 percent from 2009 to 2014.
- Microcell base stations will also increase but at a slower CAGR of 14.2 percent over the same five-year period.
- By 2014, several million metropolitan picocells will be shipped to operators worldwide.
