A new report from Point Topic reveals that by the end of the third quarter of 2007 there were 328.8 million broadband subscribers worldwide.
This equates to an increase of 4.72% in the quarter, down from the 5.16% increase reported in Q207.
Point Topic said that North America was the only region to buck the general trend. The combination of the US and Canada reported an increased growth rate of 0.15% to 3.29% for the quarter.
Western Europe added the second highest number of new subscribers in the regional chart with 3.5 million, due mainly to strong numbers in Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain. The broadband market for the whole region (Western Europe) experienced subscriber growth of 4.05%.
In Q307 the Eastern European subscriber base grew by 11.54% although this is down slightly in comparison with the 11.92% growth in the previous quarter. Net adds in Eastern Europe represent 10% of the global total, mainly due to the contributions of Russia, Romania and Poland.
Broadband users in Latin America grew steadily over the third quarter. In Q207 the growth was 8.86% while three months later it fell to 8.63% or 1.3 million net adds. This is approximately the same number of new subscribers added in the Asia Pacific region, however this equates to the lowest regional growth rate in Q3 2007 of 2.4% due to the higher base.
Although the percentage increase in South and East Asia was down on Q207 (6.14% in Q2 and 6.04% in Q3) the region reported the highest number of net adds with 3.9 million and with 3.5 million new broadband users China accounted for 90% of them.
A recent report from Forrester Research said that there is still huge potential for growth in Western European residential broadband adoption, despite a slowdown in the majority of national markets.
Forrester predicts 44% household penetration at the end of 2007 and forecasts a rise to 71% by the end of 2013 (see Potential For Growth In European Broadband Adoption).
Ofcom’s latest International Communications Market Report broadband take-up continues to increase in the UK with over half of all households connected at the end of 2006, putting the UK slightly ahead of the US for the first time (see UK Advertisers Spend More Per Person Online Than Any Other Country).
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