Global broadband growth slowing down

With 328.8 million broadband subscribers worldwide, the growth of broadband is starting to slow down

By the end of the third quarter of 2007 there were 328.8 million broadband subscribers worldwide. This equates to an increase of 4.72% in the quarter, down from the 5.16% increase reported in Q2 2007.

North America was the only region to buck the general trend. The combination of the US and Canada reported an increased growth rate of 0.15% to 3.29% for the quarter.

Western Europe added the second highest number of new subscribers in the regional chart with 3.5 million, due mainly to strong numbers in Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain. The broadband market for the whole region (Western Europe) experienced subscriber growth of 4.05%.

Eastern Europe still leads in percentage growth terms. In Q3 2007 the subscriber base grew by 11.54% although this is down slightly in comparison with the 11.92% growth in the previous quarter. Net adds in Eastern Europe represent 10% of the global total, mainly due to the contributions of Russia, Romania and Poland.

Broadband users in Latin America grew steadily over the third quarter. In Q2 2007 the growth was 8.86% while three months later it fell to 8.63% or 1.3 million net adds. This is approximately the same number of new subscribers added in the Asia Pacific region, however this equates to the lowest regional growth rate in Q3 2007 of 2.4% due to the higher base.

Although the percentage increase in South and East Asia was down on Q2 2007 (6.14% in Q2 and 6.04% in Q3) the region reported the highest number of net adds with 3.9 million and with 3.5 million new broadband users China accounted for 90% of them.