The twenty largest cable and telephone providers in the US – representing about 94% of the market – acquired 887,000 net additional high-speed Internet subscribers in the second quarter of 2008, according to new figures from Leichtman Research Group (LRG).
These top broadband providers now account for 65.1 million subscribers – with cable companies having 35.3 million broadband subscribers, and telephone companies having over 29.7 million subscribers.
LRG also found that the top cable companies added over 670,000 subscribers, representing 76% of the net broadband additions for the quarter versus the top telephone companies.
Overall, broadband additions in 2Q 2008 amounted to 51% of those in 2Q 2007 – with cable having 85% as many additions as a year ago, and telcos 23%.
The top cable broadband providers have a 54% share of the overall market, with a 5.6 million subscriber advantage over the top telephone companies.
Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, said: “Net broadband additions in the quarter were the fewest of any quarter in the seven years LRG has been tracking the industry.
“While the relative number of quarterly broadband adds has certainly peaked, the decline in additions this quarter compared to the same period last year was exacerbated by Verizon and AT&T’s emphasis on selling higher speed FiOS and U-verse bundled services, often at the expense of the traditional DSL service.”
Earlier this month, Jupiter Research forecast that the number of worldwide internet users will increase 44% between 2007 and 2012, reaching 1.8 billion users (see A Quarter Of The World’s Population Will Be Online By 2012).
The Worldwide Online Population Forecast, 2007 to 2012 report predicts that by 2012, one quarter of the worldwide population will access the Internet on a regular basis.
Figures from the IAB and PwC released in April revealed that online advertising grew almost 40% year on year in 2007 to a new high of over £2.8 billion (see UK Online Adspend Grows Almost 40% Year On Year In 2007).
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