According to Point Topic, the quarterly growth rate in Q2 2006 has been the lowest ever, only 7.1 percent worldwide, which is drop from 8.5 percent at the end of 2005. The data comes from their latest report entitled "World Broadband Statistics: Q2 2006" -- based upon market data available at the end of June 2006.
Among all regions, only South-East Asia and Asia-Pacific reported an increase in growth rate over the quarter. Despite the slight increase from 4.35 percent to 4.50 percent in Q2, Asia Pacific was still the region with the lowest growth rate, primarily due to the saturation in the broadband market. Similarly, North America and Western Europe also suffered from this saturation effect and only managed to achieve 4.82 percent and 5.64 percent quarterly growth respectively.
As a common trend, the broadband market often shows a decline during the first half of the year, thus we would expect a more substantial growth in the third and the fourth quarters. The growth in DSL has slowed down gradually since Q3 2005. It is more apparent in Asian-Pacific countries such as South Korea and Japan where a significant number of subscribers have migrated from DSL to FTTx. Cable modem has been doing well, but also reported a decline in growth during Q2.
In terms of the total number of broadband lines added in Q2, China once again added significantly more lines than the USA, with an impressive net addition of 5.1 million lines, boosting the country total to 46 million lines, accounting for almost 19 percent of the world’s broadband total. With this high growth rate and a large number of potential broadband subscribers, China will soon become the country with the largest broadband subscriber base in the world.
Among all regions, only South-East Asia and Asia-Pacific reported an increase in growth rate over the quarter. Despite the slight increase from 4.35 percent to 4.50 percent in Q2, Asia Pacific was still the region with the lowest growth rate, primarily due to the saturation in the broadband market. Similarly, North America and Western Europe also suffered from this saturation effect and only managed to achieve 4.82 percent and 5.64 percent quarterly growth respectively.
As a common trend, the broadband market often shows a decline during the first half of the year, thus we would expect a more substantial growth in the third and the fourth quarters. The growth in DSL has slowed down gradually since Q3 2005. It is more apparent in Asian-Pacific countries such as South Korea and Japan where a significant number of subscribers have migrated from DSL to FTTx. Cable modem has been doing well, but also reported a decline in growth during Q2.
In terms of the total number of broadband lines added in Q2, China once again added significantly more lines than the USA, with an impressive net addition of 5.1 million lines, boosting the country total to 46 million lines, accounting for almost 19 percent of the world’s broadband total. With this high growth rate and a large number of potential broadband subscribers, China will soon become the country with the largest broadband subscriber base in the world.