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 semiconductor industry is experiencing a historic acceleration driven by surging investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and computing power. According to the latest IDC worldwide market study, 2025 marks a defining year in which AI's pervasive impact reconfigures industry economics and propels record growth across the compute segment of the semiconductor market. Semiconductor Market Development IDC’s latest data reveals an insightful projection: The compute segment of the semiconductor market is on track to grow 36 percent in 2025, reaching $349 billion. This segment, which encompasses logic chips powering CPUs, GPUs, and AI accelerators, will sustain a robust 12 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2030. These numbers underscore not only current momentum but a structural shift driven by large-scale adoption of AI workloads spanning cloud, edge, and on-premises deployment models. The scale of investment is unprecedented. As organizations ...