Nearly two million mobile WiMAX subscribers worldwide by year's end, most eyeing LTE suspiciously

The folks at ABI Research have done up a nice summary of the status of mobile WiMAX globally, saying that they expect the total number of subscribers to be at around two million come January. Overall it's not the most optimistic picture, with many service rollouts falling short of their projected aims both in availability and in subscribers, South Korea's numbers "stagnant," and LTE breathing down everybody's necks -- particularly in the US and Japan. Still, there are some notable bright spots, most particularly Russia's Yota service, which broke 200,000 subscribers last month after five months of commercial operation, and which is also flirting with profitability at this early stage. Clearwire is the other main shining light, with "more-than-adequate funding" allowing for an increased pace of deployment. It's hard to say just exactly what sort of market share we should expect from WiMAX in the long run, but after the painful eons of CDMA vs. GSM, we really are rooting for one of these 4G technologies win decisively over the other.