The U.S. smart-phone market is growing at a rapid pace despite the ongoing global economic slowdown. A recent analysis by CTIA Wireless has revealed that the country’s wireless service providers have generated a massive $19.4 billion of data revenues from smart-phone users during the first half of 2009. This is an improvement of 31% year over year. This is primarily due to a shift in consumer preference towards feature-enhanced high-end PDA devices from ordinary mobile handsets used primarily for voice telephony. The PDA market size is likely to approach $200 billion by 2012, according to various industry sources.   This grand opportunity provides massive scope for telecom service providers, equipment manufacturers, chipset developers, and wireless tower operators to retain new users and grow revenues moving forward. According to the CTIA Wireless report, at present, the U.S. has more than 246 million data capable devices with 40 million smart-phones or ...

Major wireless tower operators in the U.S. are gradually diversifying their operations in the emerging market of India. The tower sector in India is growing through a wave of consolidation. Smaller players are looking at mergers or complete sell out to large global tower operators since these companies lack the wherewithal to take on their large rivals.   Recently, American Tower Corp. (AMT) acquired XCEL Telecom Pvt Ltd., a mobile tower operator in India. XCEL owns 1,667 towers and has another 70 towers in various stages of development. The acquisition increases the total number of American Tower controlled wireless tower sights to over 26,000. Previous to this acquisition, American Tower had entered a build-to-suit agreement with a Tier1 wireless carrier in India to construct 200 tower sites.   Crown Castle International (CCI) is currently in negotiations with two Indian tower operators, Aster Infrastructure and Independent Mobile Infrastructure Ltd.

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