Point Topic's first-quarter analysis of the worldwide DSL market shows the number of lines increased by 10.5 percent to 107.3 million in Q1 2005. Over 37 million DSL lines were added since March 2004 last year, taking growth to 54 percent for the 12 months ending 31 March 2005. There were just over 10.1m lines added in the first quarter of 2005 alone - second only to the 10.4m added in the fourth quarter of 2004. These results show DSL is continuing to enjoy good momentum in 2005. The analysis also shows changes in traditional patterns, with growth in high penetration countries such as South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan slowing, whilst emerging markets such as Turkey, Thailand and Poland are showing growth of 24 percent or more. Incumbent operators are beginning to lose market share to unbundlers in countries where unbundling is well established. For example, the number of wholesale lines provided by France Telecom fell by 19,000, and that by KPN (Netherlands) fell by 22,000 as competitors switch to unbundled lines. The UK was the fastest growing major DSL country, adding over 20 percent to reach almost 5m DSL lines in the quarter - faster than world leader China which grew by 15 percent and looks set to pass 20m lines.
The global cloud computing market is undergoing new significant growth, driven by the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and the demand for flexible, scalable infrastructure. The recent market study by International Data Corporation (IDC) provides compelling evidence of this transformation, highlighting the accelerating growth in cloud infrastructure spending and the pivotal role of AI in shaping the industry's future trajectory. Shared Infrastructure Market Development The study reveals a 36.9 percent year-over-year worldwide increase in spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud deployments in the first quarter of 2024, reaching $33 billion. This growth substantially outpaced non-cloud infrastructure spending, which saw a modest 5.7 percent increase to $13.9 billion during the same period. The surge in cloud infrastructure spending was partially fueled by an 11.4 percent growth in unit demand, influenced by higher average selling prices, primari