Ericsson is getting a lot of mileage out of its latest Mobility Report, which predicts that 85 percent of all mobile subscriptions in North America will be accessing LTE networks in 2019. “LTE is being deployed and built-out in all regions” around the world, according to the document, and will claim 2.6 billion subscriptions worldwide within six years.

But as my colleague Peter Crocker reminded me when he posted this graph this week, the big growth in foreign markets over the next few years will be in 3G subscriptions rather than 4G. Crocker recently published this compelling forecast that claims 3G will account for 55 percent of smartphone subscriptions in 2017, while 4G will claim only 18 percent of those subscriptions. And the balance of smartphone subscriptions worldwide will be 2G only, according to Crocker. Handset vendors, app developers and every other player looking to tap those markets need to keep those statistics in mind.