Europe Overtakes North America In Broadband Penetration
Europe has overtaken North America as the second largest broadband market in the world, with Strategy Analytics predicting total broadband penetration in Western Europe to reach 63% by 2010, with 93% of online households using broadband to access the internet.
Germany is shown to have the lowest level of broadband penetration out of the 14 European countries, with just 24% of German homes expected to have broadband by the end of the year.
This decline is attributed to the lack of competition in the German broadband market place, with eMarketer senior analyst, Ben Macklin, explaining: “Deutsche Telekom continues to completely dominate the broadband sector in Germany, and over the past two years a lack of competition or service innovation has hampered the growth of broadband in the country.”
Broadband penetration is still growing in Germany, with eMarketer showing the number of broadband households in Germany to have increased by 46.2%. However, rivals France and the UK grew by 90.6% and 85.7% respectively in the same period.
Like most countries in Europe, Germany’s broadband market is dominated by digital subscriber lines (DSL), according to eMarketer, over 95% of Germany’s broadband households will use DSL in 2005.
According to internet research specialist, Point-Topic, worldwide broadband lines grew to 174.4 million during the first quarter of 2005, enjoying an increase of 8.5% from the 151.5 million lines in 31 December 2004 (see Worldwide Broadband Lines Top 174 Million In Q1 2005).
