Posted: 23rd Jun, 2004 By: MarkJ
The latest research from industry analyst Point Topic has found that xDSL (ADSL, SDSL etc.) services now account for a 65.8% share of the globes 111.5 Million broadband connections. The UK alone has a xDSL share of 60.2%!:
Global broadband subscribers grew at 12.3% in the first quarter of 2004, adding 12 million to reach a total of 111.5 million, according to the latest data prepared for the DSL Forum by industry analyst, Point Topic. DSL is accelerating that global lead, growing at 14.9% in the quarter - double the rate of other broadband technologies that only achieved 7.2% growth.
Sixty-nine countries now have broadband services, all but eleven of them dominated by DSL. At a global level DSL has a 65.8% share of the broadband access market, with 34.2% held by cable modems, Ethernet and other broadband technologies.
Regionally, only in North America does cable retain the lead in delivering broadband. The USA has the largest total broadband subscriber population in the world at 27.5 million, accounting for almost a quarter of the global market.
Even here, where cable modems have held a dominant market share, they are losing out to broadband DSL that now holds 38.5%, gaining 1.2% in the last quarter alone. In Canada, the fifth largest broadband country in the world at 4.9 million subscribers, cable modems still have the majority of subscribers at 52.83%, but again, DSL is closing the gap.
Over half of the largest 20 countries for broadband are in Europe where the UK, Netherlands and Austria were all dominated by cable modems just nine months ago, but now DSL has the lead. In the European Union by the end of March 2004, over 77% of broadband connections were via DSL.
Total Broadband Subscribers Q1 2004
The Top 20 Countries
1 USA 27,467,523
2 China 15,115,000
3 Japan 14,917,165
4 South Korea 11,427,998
5 Canada 4,962,199
6 Gemany 4,935,280
7 France 4,536,056
8 UK 3,774,866
9 Taiwan 3,193,194
10 Italy 3,131,500
11 Spain 2,429,252
12 Netherlands 2,121,500
13 Belgium 1,381,000
14 Brazil 1,320,975
15 Hong Kong 1,270,000
16 Sweden 1,048,400
17 Switzerland 976,000
18 Australia 863,850
19 Denmark 804,000
20 Austria 643,700