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Broadband Not Going to Stop

With rapid growth in the last 10 years, broadband has claimed the crown as the fastest adopted technology ever. More people subscribed in a shorter time than bought mobile phones, computers, TVs, the walkman or any of the other revolutionary advances and devices since fire first debuted. Now Point Topic projects broadband will grow by another 67% over the next five years to pass 680 million lines worldwide by the end of 2013.

"From 2004 to 2008 broadband worldwide grew an average of 28% every year," says Tim Johnson, Chief Analyst at Point Topic. Johnson was responsible for producing the new forecasts, based on detailed bottom-up projections for each of the 40 biggest broadband countries in the world.

"Now though, countries like South Korea, Japan or Denmark are close to saturation and most people who want broadband have it already," he points out. "Even in less saturated countries like the US, broadband subscriptions will grow by only about 50% over the next 5 years," he adds.

This saturation in developed countries, coupled with the world entering a period of lower economic growth, even recession in some markets, will slow the worldwide march of broadband in the coming years to an expected 8% per year compound up to 2013.

But there are some countries where the expansion will continue to be spectacular. Fourteen of them will more than double their broadband base by 2013. As the table below shows they are mostly in the developing world and emerging economies.

Top performers - growth in broadband lines 2008-2013

The BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China - which have been the engine of recent economic growth dominate this list as well, with India well out in front.

"With its burgeoning economy and huge population India will zoom up the rankings of the largest broadband countries in the world. Currently at number 18 in the charts it will hit number 6 by the end of 2013," predicts Johnson.

"Central and South America will see the most high-growth countries. Brazil will shortly enter the top 10 broadband countries in the world, most likely before the end of 2008, and again with a decent economic base and a large population hungry for bandwidth it will outperform most other countries in the next 5 years," Johnson adds.

Broadband growth in China will not be quite so extravagant in percentage terms. Now the largest broadband country in the world it will continue to outperform its nearest rivals, the US, Japan and Germany and will extend its lead at the top of the table.

"Even with all this activity broadband will still be just a dream for more than two-thirds of the world's households in five years time," Johnson points out.

"Many of them will be poorer households in rich countries, as well as those in huge swathes of the developing world. But easy access to the internet is core to education, health, wealth and entertainment for everybody. Broadband is fast, adoption is rapid but for the good of the world it still has a long way to go," he concludes.

Point Topic's new forecasts cover the 40 biggest countries in the world in broadband terms, accounting for over 96% of the world broadband market today. Adding in estimates for the rest of the world, the total number of broadband lines, serving both homes and businesses, will grow from 382 million at mid-2008 and a forecast 410 million at the end of the year to over 680 million by the end of 2013.

More details are available at http://point-topic.msgfocus.com/c/12aB107yLojeyx0.

Point Topic

Point Topic is an analyst company focusing entirely on broadband. Point Topic's international services have a global reputation for providing the most up-to-date and authoritative user statistics, supplier profiles and applications reports on DSL, FTTx, cable and other broadband services worldwide.