Point Topic has issued the final global broadband statistics from its first quarter tally of xDSL and cable modem lines. The worldwide total grew to 164.4m lines during the first quarter of 2005, an increase of 8.5% from 151.5m lines at 31st December 2004.

The total number of broadband lines added in the first quarter of 2005 was almost 13m. Asia Pacific alone added 4.3m lines in Q1 2005, and held its majority share of world broadband lines, despite dropping 1% since end-2004 to 42%.

EMEA continued to grow impressively in the first half of 2005 - adding 5.3m lines, and achieving a 29% share of world broadband lines. EMEA and Americas now both possess a 29% share of world broadband lines.

DSL lines grew by 10.4%, while cable modem and other technologies achieved a more modest 5.0% growth rate in Q1 2005. The DSL share of world broadband lines is a dominant 65% compared to 35% of lines consisting of cable modem and other technologies.

The country rankings in Figure 3 show that the USA remains the largest broadband market with over 36.5m broadband lines, with China in second place reaching 28.3m lines. Japan also remains in third place with 19.7m lines, and looks set to pass 20m lines in by Q2 2005.

South Korea also maintains its fourth place position with just over 12m lines, but is now being trailed by a group of Western European countries - France, Germany and UK, which have all passed 7m lines.

France with 7.7m lines has finally overtaken Germany (7.5m lines) to become the largest European broadband market. The UK having added over 1m lines in Q1, and now with 7.1m lines, is also looking to overtake Germany in 2005.

The UK having added 1m lines in Q1, is also leading growth in the 'G7 Rankings' - achieving a 16.5% increase in lines in Q1.

DSL leaders

Looking at the technology markets separately, China remains the world’s largest DSL market in Q1 2005, reaching 19.5m lines by the end of March. China was still the world’s most dynamic DSL market in absolute terms adding 2.6m lines in Q1 2005. USA added 1.4m, whilst France added 891,000 and UK kept up momentum to add 840,000 lines.

Cable modem leaders

The USA remains the leading market for cable modems, with 21.4m subscriptions by the end of March 2005. China is a distant second with 8.8m lines. Japan has overtaken the saturating South Korean market for third place with 5.9m lines.

The UK maintains its position in sixth place with 2.1m lines, having gained some ground on fifth placed Canada which has 3.1m lines. Cable modem growth in Germany shows a decline in the Q1 analysis, because a large portion of Primacom's lines have been redistributed to the Netherlands following availability of more accurate data.