Finally, there might be some relief in sight for Nokia and Ericsson, and its got nothing to do with handsets. In fact it is their infrastructure business which might ride to their rescue. According to Pyramid Research forecasts GSM will drive 60% of operator spending in 2004, with CDMA and WCDMA accounting for 22% and 18%, respectively. Lucent and Nortel are serious players in CDMA markets, though the Canadians do have a sizeable GSM presence. GSM will continue to make up a significant share of global infrastructure CAPEX through 2009, flattening at 50% of the total market beyond 2005, Pyramind predicts.

This is a direct result of faster-than-expected GSM subscriber growth in Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe. Global CDMA spending, when expressed as a percentage of the total mobile infrastructure market, will remain relatively flat at 20% through 2009. However, the expansion of EVDO deployments worldwide (especially in the US) will lead to an increase in overall CDMA spending. Pyramid expects WCDMA spending to increase over the course of 2004-2005 and then remain relatively flat on a percentage basis.