Europe will overtake the US in the penetration of broadband internet in online homes by 2007, according to new forecasts from Jupiter Research. The group says that 48% of net-connected households in Europe will have broadband by this time, compared to 46% in the US.
Jupiter says that there will be sustained growth for both the cable and DSL broadband platforms throughout the continent. This will be driven by strong consumer interest, improving availability and lower prices.
By 2008, 47 million European households (28%) will subscribe to a broadband service, making it the most prevalent type of internet connection in the region.
The report predicts that the increasing penetration of high-speed broadband services will offer opportunities for delivering “rich” multimedia content. This includes video and high-quality audio data, which can be used by advertisers to ‘enrich’ their online creative.
Narrowband usurped At the end of last year, 81% of European online homes were connected to the internet via a narrowband (dial-up) system. But interest in broadband is strong and a survey by Jupiter found that 26% of these narrowband customers intend to upgrade to broadband within a year.
One of the key obstacles to this migration is the limited availability of the broadband infrastructure. This is about to change, as improvements in technology and continued service roll-out broaden the geographic reach of the service.
The bulk of European broadband homes will come from the largest economies. By 2008 there will by 12.2 million connected homes in Germany; 6.6 million France and 8.0 million in the UK. The UK currently has over two million broadband homes, according to the latest figures from Oftel (see UK Broadband Reaches Two Million Homes).
“Internet users are highly price-sensitive when adopting broadband. Recent moves by European and UK providers to offer cheaper DSL and cable services have proved extremely popular. This will continue to drive increased broadband growth,” said Ian Fogg, analyst at Jupiter Research.
Separate forecasts from eMarketer predict a faster rate of growth for broadband, with western Europe alone expected to hit 41 million homes by 2005 (see Broadband To Reach 40m Western European Homes By 2005).
