JANUARY 30, 2009 -- Fixed broadband subscribers grew 4% to more than 390 million in the third quarter, according to Dittberner's (search for Dittberner) recently released "3Q08 Global Telecom Subscriber Survey."
According to the analyst firm, the top largest broadband markets and their third-quarter global market share are as follows: China (20.62%), U.S. (18.23%), Japan (7.67%), Germany (5.67%), France (4.36%), United Kingdom (4.31%), Korea (3.8%), Italy (2.69%), Canada (2.46%), and Brazil (2.34%).
Having overtaken the U.S. in the first quarter, China is now pulling away. With the government looking to encourage home PC acquisition, especially in rural areas, China's growth of 4.8 million new subscribers per quarter should continue for the next three or four years, at least, say Dittberner analysts. France overtook the United Kingdom for fifth place, and Brazil displaced Spain in the top ten and will likely overtake Canada by the end of 2008. With Mexico overtaking the Netherlands in 12th place and Russia right behind, they will make the top ten list, but not in 2009.
In terms of broadband subscribers by technology, DSL makes up 65% of the access technologies, while cable modems comprise 20% of the market. However, the new technologies to watch are 100-Mbps HFC, fixed wireless, and fiber-to-the-building (FTTB), says Dittberner.
"It is dawning on service providers that there is not enough revenue in TV and Broadband Internet to justify the high cost of FTTH deployment," reports James Heath, director of broadband research at Dittberner. As such, Dittberner believes that service providers will continue to pursue lower cost, incremental development strategies for fixed broadband networks.