Consumer broadband adoption is increasing at its fastest rate across most of Europe, with new research from Datamonitor expecting penetration to settle at around 60% in terms of household penetration in advanced markets.
Broadband has enjoyed a surge in popularity over recent years and is now central to many service providers’ strategies, aggressive marketing techniques and competitive pricing programmes has resulted in a dramatic rise in broadband coverage.
Commenting on the findings, Tim Gower, enterprise communications analyst at Datamonitor and author of the report said: “”The current situation in many markets can be best described as one of rapidly increasing penetration, where broadband has effectively entered its growth sweet spot.”
He continued: “With some markets potentially experiencing changes in the household penetration of broadband of up to 10% in a calendar year, service providers must be well positioned to take advantage of the forthcoming penetration acceleration, prior to the inevitable slowdown.”
Out of the various types of broadband technologies, digital subscriber line (DSL) were shown to be the most popular type of broadband on offer, with Datamonitor stating DSL has already achieved good penetration levels in most markets.
Currently the French, Norwegian and Dutch markets have the highest penetration of DSL in Europe, with effective regulation having encouraged extremely fierce price competition in the markets. Elsewhere, operators in Portugal and Ireland have been less effectively regulated and this situation has led to limited competition, high prices and a slower increase in DSL household penetration.
Datamonitor shows the UK to be experiencing strong growth in consumer broadband uptake, claming that by the end of 2005, almost 8 million households in the UK will have a connection.
Gower added: “At current rates of broadband adoption, there are on average a good eighteen months to two years of strong penetration increases across Western Europe before markets begin to mature. Although, there will be a variation in this process across markets, service providers must clearly ensure that they are in the best position to take advantage of the various country opportunities.”
According to the latest figures from Point Topic, global broadband lines grew to a total of 176 million during the second quarter of 2005, a rise of 16% from 152 million lines at 31 December 2004, with the total number of lines added between the end of 2004 and Q2 2005 reaching 24.3 million (see Global Broadband Lines Hit 176 Million).
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