"India, because of its scale, and the U.S., because of Clearwire's profile, are the two most prominent markets for WiMAX, and both are absolutely critical to its fortunes. Adoption levels and network performance in India and the U.S. will dictate how WiMAX is perceived in a global context, and thus how prominent a position 802.16e takes in the overall wireless landscape in the next decade," said Richard Webb , directing analyst for WiMAX at Infonetics Research.

• India is the largest single-country WiMAX opportunity in the world, with most of the major operators actively pursuing WiMAX (BSNL, Tata, Bharti Airtel, etc); deployments are well-underway with acceleration in adoption experienced in many telecoms circles
• In India, Telsima -- now Harris-Stratex -- led the WiMAX equipment market in 2008, followed by Alcatel-Lucent and WiMAX specialist Aperto
• After a slowdown during the recession in 2009, WiMAX adoption in the U.S. will be healthy, led by Clearwire and a growing number of small-town and rural deployments by other operators, many benefiting from rural broadband stimulus funding
• Russia is the 'perfect storm' for WiMAX: challenging geography, dispersed population, pent up demand for broadband and voice services, and a population able to pay for services; there are currently more than 10 WiMAX networks in operation or deployment in Russia
• Brazil is potentially one of the world's most dynamic WiMAX markets, with a very mobile-oriented populace; WiMAX has an opportunity to become the primary broadband network in Brazil, where the number of WiMAX subscribers is forecast to skyrocket from 184,000 in 2008 to almost 8 million in 2013
• Most countries in Central and Eastern Europe have WiMAX deployments underway and more than 20 operators offer VoIP over WiMAX service, a major driver of adoption
• There are over 80 networks now active in over 35 African countries, with demand for broadband and voice services driving deployment, despite challenges in terms of funding and low-ARPU business models
• The Middle East region has strong potential for WiMAX due to its relatively stable and affluent economies and often inferior telecommunications infrastructure
• Though the current market is very modest, if China's 3G technology TD- SCDMA fails to ignite the market, a softening of the regulatory attitude to WiMAX could follow, leading to much more extensive WiMAX market growth
• In Japan, mobile WiMAX adoption is growing, with a battle brewing between operator UQ's mobile WiMAX network (in partnership with KDDi) and NTT DoCoMo's LTE rollout
• Mobile WiMAX adoption is also increasing in South Korea, although a new focus on LTE rollouts may lead to convergence between WiMAX and LTE using dual mode devices

Markets provides vendor market share, market size, analysis, and forecasts through 2013 for mobile (802.16e) and fixed line (802.16d) WiMAX equipment in the U.S., Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Africa, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil.

The report tracks fixed line WiMAX base transceiver stations (BTS) and CPE, and mobile WiMAX ASN gateways, CPE, and macro, micro, and pico base transceiver stations; as well as WiMAX and WiMAX VoIP subscribers.

2008 vendor market share is provided for Airspan, Alcatel-Lucent, Alvarion, Aperto Networks, Cisco, Huawei, Motorola, Nokia Siemens, Nortel, Redline, Samsung, Siemens, Telsima, ZTE, and others.

Related research:

• Operator survey shows market reality of WiMAX services; VoIP a key component
• Alvarion consolidates lead in WiMAX equipment market
• China set to open up to WiMAX
• Huawei and ZTE cause major shakeup in mobile infrastructure market