Broadband Remains Strong As Net Penetration Stalls

The number of people with a high-speed internet connection is expected to rise further with nearly one in ten dial-up users expressing an interest in upgrading within the next twelve months. An additional 6% of respondents said they would almost certainly switch to broadband before the end of the year and 12% claimed it was ‘quite likely’ that they would upgrade.

From these survey results Continental estimated that of the nine million dial-up homes in the UK, 1.2 million are likely to upgrade to a faster connection in the next six to twelve months. This would put the number of broadband homes at around 4.8 million by the end of the year.

Colin Shaddick, director at Continental Research, said: “With 12.6 million homes now connected to the internet there is a still a huge opportunity available for telecoms companies to persuade people to upgrade onto faster connections.”

The news will be welcomed by internet service providers such as BT and Yahoo!, which recently launched the second phase of a £10 million advertising campaign to promote their new co-branded BT Yahoo! internet service.

Home usage However, whilst the penetration of broadband services is on the increase, the total number of internet homes in the UK is expected to remain static in 2004 after a number of years of sustained growth. Continental forecasts that the penetration of UK homes with web access will remain at 50% in 2004, showing no change over 2003. The report says that growth is slowing as penetration reaches saturation point in ABC1 and younger households.

There is still a higher proportion of males online in the UK, at 54% of all home users. The male bias is clear, given that females represent a slightly higher proportion of the the overall population, at 51%. Usage is also still weighted toward the young and relatively affluent, as shown.

Work, school or college usage The penetration of Net usage at work, school or college is forecast to reach 38% of all individuals in 2004, up slightly from 37% in 2003. Given a UK adult population of 48.8 million, this would mean 18.5 million work, school or college users by the end of this year.

The growth rate of work internet penetration has been much less dramatic than that of home usage, as shown in the graph below where the two are plotted together.

Whilst the work/school/college usage demographic breakdown shows the same younger, affluent bias, the male bias is exaggerated due to the higher proportion of males in these circumstances (54%).

Total internet access Continental has ‘de-duplicated’ those who regularly use the internet both at home (40%) and at work, school or college (27%) and finds that the overall UK internet penetration of regular users was 44% in 2003. This is expected to rise to 45% in 2004.

The growth rates of access from home, work are shown the table and graphs below.