There are now more than 25 million digital subscriber lines (DSL), offering broadband communications, across the world, according to new data released by Point Topic.
Telecoms operators in 50 countries added 6.7 million DSL lines in the first half of 2002 and despite the economic slowdown and the telecoms financial crisis, the world’s installed base of broadband DSL lines grew by 35% in just six months, says the report.
The figures have been compiled by Point Topic for the DSL Forum, the international not-for-profit industry consortium formed to promote the mass market for DSL broadband.
DSL is a broadband method of connected computers to a network, usually the internet. It offers the fast transfer of a large amounts of information, allowing audio and video content to be viewed on the web.
DSL affected by economic difficulties The DSL market has not been unaffected by the economic climate, says Point Topic. The group estimates that growth in the first quarter of 2002 was roughly 20%, from 18.8 million to about 22.6 million lines. Growth in the second quarter was about 13% to 25.6 million lines.
It is believed that the slowdown was partly a seasonal effect – the second quarter of the year is a weak one for this type of product in most countries, says the report. It was also partly due to the storm of financial problems which hit the telecoms industry particularly badly in this period.
These problems were reflected in the regional pattern of growth. The Asia-Pacific region added about 2.7 million lines to grow at about the world average rate. In Western Europe and South and East Asia (mainly China) the growth rate was 50% and 78% respectively, adding 2.6 million lines between them.
However, in North America only 1.1 million lines were added, a growth of 19%. “That is still an impressive performance in a time of financial difficulty, but Western Europe is now close to overtaking North America in terms of the total number of DSL lines,” says Point Topic.
Japan leads the way Leading the way in new lines is Japan, which increased its installed base by over 115% with 1.8 million new DSL subscribers.
The USA and Germany were some way behind adding 890,000 and 730,000 new lines respectively, with Korea, China, Taiwan, France, Spain, Brazil and Canada all adding over 200,000.
In terms of percentages, China and Japan are doing best among the major countries, with many European countries also among the leaders. Growth is declining in the countries which originally led the market, notably the USA, Canada and South Korea.
“With the possible exception of South Korea we are still a long way from saturation for the broadband market in general and DSL in particular,” says publisher Tim Johnson. “We believe that DSL numbers will grow by about the same percentage in the second half of this year as in the first, which means there should be about 35 million DSL lines worldwide by the end of 2002.”
