According to an NPD Group study released today, over 35 percent of US smartphones sold in the fourth quarter of 2011 were 4G-enabled, up from six percent last year. Of course, what “4G” means is up for debate; for the purposes of this study, 14.4Mbps-capable HSPA+ phones like the relabeled iPhone 4S counted. Not surprisingly, then, 62.9 percent of “4G” smartphones sold in the quarter were of the HSPA+ variety, followed up by 20 percent from LTE devices, and 17.1 percent from WiMAX phones. The numbers suggest that WiMAX, once championed by Sprint as an alternative to LTE, is on its way out – only 6 percent of all smartphone sales for the quarter used the technology compared to a hi…
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NPD: seven percent of all smartphones sold in Q4 2011 were LTE-enabled, six percent WiMAX
Dante D’Orazio – theverge.com