SIM Server

LTE is the next wave in telecommunications market. With LTE gaining momentum across the world, there has been strong demand for LTE-enabled smartphones.

According to a recent research from ABI Research, LTE smartphones will cross 65 million units in 2012. This growth will help drive intellectual property royalties of mobile wireless devices 14 percent higher during the year. In the near future, LTE-enabled smartphones market will be lead by the much-awaited LTE-enabled iPhone (News - Alert) 5 and Samsung’s LTE smartphones.

ABI Research’s report, “Mobile Device Royalties,” has found that mobile wireless royalties for GSM, WCDMA, and LTE smartphones were just under $20 billion in 2011 but the increase to 65 million LTE smartphones will help push the 2012 royalty total higher.

“Even though LTE handsets will only total 4 percent of the total handsets shipped in 2012, total royalty rates will be 14 percent higher,” said ABI Research director Philip Solis, in a statement.

The research also predicted a major shift in patent portfolios among mobile phone makers. In recent years, companies like Motorola (News - Alert) have been at the forefront with strong patent portfolios for GSM and WCDMA, but that power will shift over the next five years to those with strong 4G positions, including Samsung (News - Alert) and Panasonic.

Over the last several years, annual handset shipments have gone from hundreds of millions to more than a billion, while the market has shifted toward 3G handsets.

“Samsung’s strength in LTE patents will suit it well as one of the strongest LTE handset vendors,” said Solis. “Companies like Ericsson, Nokia, InterDigital (News - Alert), and Qualcomm will retain their patent position as the market shifts.”

Chinese phone makers are keen to acquiring 4G patents as seen by the rise in number of patent filling and participation in standardization by leading companies like Huawei (News - Alert) and ZTE. ABI Research finds that these companies, as well as their Japanese and South Korean counterparts, will shift some of the patent power from Europe and the US to the Asia-Pacific.

Although some 2G royalties are expiring, the growing base of 3G handsets and acceleration of LTE handsets – with combined, but not quite additive, royalties for 2G, 3G, and 4G patents – will keep total mobile wireless royalties growing, the research noted.

In other industry news, iQsim has a spring in its step as last week the SIM server provider received warm news that it has been named as a finalist for the 2012 Red Herring Top 100 Europe Award. And for iQsim, this news sends a promising message to the market that the SIM server company is continuing down the path of innovation and leadership.

“iQsim delivers a full end-to-end solution with a powerful service layer, the IRON Suite, that enables services that put our solution ahead of the competition,”  Ronen Shpirer, product marketing manager at iQsim, told TMCnet of being recognized with the award. “These services maximize service profitability for our clients and protect their mobile termination assets and investments. The selection as a finalist for Red Herring’s Top 100 Europe award is an independent and serious confirmation to the value and innovation encapsulated in our products and solutions.”