Analyst firm Point Topic UK has released its latest World Broadband Statistics Report for the third quarter of 2009, highlighting a worldwide growth in broadband ISP subscribers of 3.18% between Q3 and Q2. This represents a decrease in broadband growth over the same period last year, when it grew by 4.15%. There are now 451.94 million broadband subscribers globally.

Global broadband population penetration was 7.8% by the end of Q3 2009, up from 7.6% at the end of Q2 2009 and up from 6.8% a year ago. Global household penetration was 28.7%, up from 27.8% in Q2 2009 and up from 25.1% a year ago. The regional share of broadband subscribers has remained largely unchanged, though South and East Asia saw a rise of +2% from 22.76% in Q4 2008 to 24.81% in Q3 2009.

Share of World Broadband Subscribers by Region in Q3 2009
Western Europe - 24.71%
North America - 20.72%
South and East Asia - 24.81%
Asia-Pacific - 14.27%
Latin America - 6.75%
Eastern Europe - 5.79%
Middle East and Africa - 2.95%

Similarly the choice of broadband technology has seen precious little change, with DSL ( ADSL , SDSL etc.) still dominating on 65.18%, Cable Modems ( DOCSIS ) coming in second at 20.32%, Fibre Optic ( FTTH / FTTx ) on 12.10% and others (wireless, satellite etc.) making up the remaining 2.40%. We note that quarterly DSL growth (3.33%) was higher than FTTH (2.89%); FTTH was growing the fastest at 4.9% during the end of last year.

The top 10 broadband countries by subscriber size have seen little change for several quarters since China displaced the USA from first place during Q2 2008. The UK remains in 6th behind France, though the two are still almost tied for 5th place. The highest quarterly growth was experienced in Indonesia at 19.82%, followed by Moldova with 17.34%, Egypt on 12.39% and the Philippines with an almost identical rate to Egypt.