ABI Research has forecasted that outdoor small cells will reach 500,000 units in 2013 in its latest report on outdoor small cells and carrier Wi-Fi Market Data. 1W and below small cell class will represent almost two-thirds of unit shipments in 2013, and continue to grow to overtake the higher power 5-10W microcell shipments during 2014.

According to company, outdoor small cell unit growth dropped slightly as 2012 actual shipments reached 278,000 but is expected to resume the growth in the 2013/4 timeframe as the first street level small cells get deployed.

ABI further notes that outdoor small cell units will grow at 52.7% CAGR to reach over 3.5 million units by 2018. The fastest growing outdoor class of small cells are 4G LTE small cells which will grow to reach almost 1 million unit shipments in 2018 as operators begin to differentiate their LTE services by adding capacity in key strategic locations.