Point Topic has released its latest 'World Broadband Statistics Report' to the fourth quarter of 2007, highlighting a worldwide growth in broadband subscribers of 4.8% (16.1m) between Q3 and Q4-2007. This number of net additions represents the lowest since Q2-2006, when 14.53 million new broadband subscribers were added.

However, global broadband population penetration stood at 6.1% at the same time, representing a 24% increase year-on-year from 4.9% penetration at Q4-2006. Quarterly growth increased by 0.3% from 5.8% in Q3 2007. The regional Share of World Broadband Subscribers has been rewritten by us below:


Eastern Europe, despite coming lower down overall, still managed to top the pack for quarterly growth at 10.45%; thanks largely to the growing markets of Russia, Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic.

For comparison, quarterly growth in North America fell from 7.41% in Q1 to 4.23% in Q4 while growth in Western Europe fell from 7.16% in Q1 to 4.42% in Q4. Regardless of that, North America still recorded the third highest number of net additions (3.3m) after South and East Asia and Western Europe, representing 20% of the global total.

The dominant technologies remain largely unchanged, with DSL (ADSL, SDSL etc.) commanding 65.19% of the global market, cable modems on 21.95% and fibre (FTTx) lines still lingering in the sub-11% range (10.79%). Other technologies, such as wireless and satellite, accounted for a meagre 2.08%.

Despite FTTx's limited global penetration, quarterly growth of subscribers was the highest of the three technologies at 6.35%. This was a higher growth rate than in Q3 2007 when it was 4.26% but not as high as that reported in Q2 2007 when it was 7.81%. Asia continues to be the main source of FTTx subscribers, representing a staggering 83% share.


The USA continues to lead with 72.9 million subscribers in Q4 2007. China is in second place with 66.5 million subscribers. Highest growth from Q3 to Q4 2007 was experienced in Germany, which put it in fourth place after USA, China and Japan; its subscriber base increased from 18.8 million to 20 million representing a 6.23% increase.

The countries that experienced lowest growth were UK (1.83%) and South Korea (0.82%). The full report can be found here: http://point-topic.com .