The centralized search engine's AI summary says that LTE became more popular, and the people who would buy WiMax hardware ended up buying LTE hardware instead.
From what I remember (and I might be wrong) WiMAX was first competing on the "home" Internet market. Mostly against cable & DSL I guess at the time.
It was a USB dongle you would put in your laptop.
Having a one WiMAX enabled smartphones was the cherry on top and probably more of a long term goal.
The only one I remember was the HTC Evo 4G [0] (the first 4G enabled smartphone released in the US, and by 4G they meant WiMAX, not LTE).
My guess is there was for sure a big battle between Intel, major phone manufacturers, telcos, infra providers and various patents holders.
There was probably a chicken and egg dilemma for mobile phone manufacturer since they had to wait for the network to grow before risking launching their WiMAX phone but having a WiMAX enabled phone would make WiMAX at home really attractive.
My guess is also that since people usually get their phone from their telco, phone manufacturer had to be careful not to go against their interests. And since most telco wanted LTE, WiMAX couldn't take off.
But there might be more to this story, including the fact Intel was also trying to get in the phone SOC market at this time.
