Infonetics Research has released its third quarter of 2010 (3Q10) WiMAX Equipment, Devices, and Subscribers market share and forecast report. In 12 months, from 2009 to 2010, the number of WiMAX subscribers worldwide is more than doubling, from just under 3 million to more than 7.5 million.

According to report combined worldwide WiMAX equipment and device revenue totaled $355 million in 3Q10, up 8% from 2Q10, and up 9% from the recession-weakened 3Q09.

Report highlights that while WiMAX is being challenged by LTE and TD-LTE, service providers have stated publicly (including KDDI recently in Japan) that LTE is not sufficient to address capacity issues and they intend to adopt a broad 4G strategy that includes WiFi and WiMAX as complementary technologies.

“The WiMAX market is battling through a tough year, with perceptions of the technology dented by the promise of TD-LTE, which overshadows WiMAX like a black cloud. There’s enough doomsday talk about WiMAX lately that people seem to be overlooking the fact that the WiMAX equipment market has performed pretty well so far in 2010, including another consecutive quarter of decent growth in the third quarter. At least for now, the WiMAX market is growing, based on expansion of existing networks, greenfield deployments, a gradually broadening device ecosystem, and continued subscriber growth,” notes Richard Webb, directing analyst for WiMAX, microwave, and mobile devices.