Broadband growth continues worldwide
Emerging countries have now taken the lead in the world broadband market, with both the biggest and the fastest growing share of broadband lines.
Point Topic forecasts that over the coming five years these countries will be the main driver of broadband growth, adding over 14% per year in numbers. By 2014 they will account for over 320m lines, 43% of the world total of 740m by that time.
Point Topic’s forecasts for the world broadband market are based on individual forecasts for the 40 biggest countries in terms of number of broadband lines as of mid-2009. The 40 countries can be classified into three broad groups, which could be called Emerging, Youthful and Mature in broadband terms
The emerging countries currently have low broadband take-up but high growth rates. With over 155 million lines by mid-2009 they overtook the youthful countries to become the biggest of the groups. Annual growth in individual countries is expected to range upwards from 9.5% to over 20% in emergent economies such as Vietnam and the Philippines, as well as India.
Their average take-up is still only 4.5% and with a population of almost 3.5 billion people these countries house huge potential demand which could keep the broadband market growing for decades.
The youthful market countries are probably the most unpredictable. With just under 155m lines at mid-2009 they are only just behind the emerging countries in terms of broadband size, and they include the world’s two biggest economies, the USA and Japan.
Forecast growth rates in these countries vary greatly, at only 4.0% in Japan and under 3% in Taiwan and Australia. The figure for the group as a whole is only 5.5%.
But individual countries in this group could see a rapid change in prospects, if governments set higher goals for broadband take-up for example. The key example is the USA where it remains to be seen whether the $7bn set aside for broadband investment in the stimulus package will succeed in boosting take-up above the forecast 6.0% per year.
It may at first glance seem anomalous to place the economically mighty USA and Japan in the ‘youthful’ category. However in broadband terms that is where they sit most comfortably. Despite both markets existing for as long as almost any others in terms of mass consumer broadband there is still considerable growth headroom and they currently rank 14th and 15th in terms of take-up (lines per 100 people) in the list of top 40 broadband countries.
Finally the mature countries are all more or less approaching saturation, at least according to current market expectations. The growth rate for the group as a whole is forecast at only 4.6%, which should raise total numbers from 108m in mid 2009 to 139m by the end of 2014.
Even within this group there are some countries showing stronger growth, notably Germany which is forecast to average 6%. And while total broadband numbers will grow only slowly there will be a major shift in this group to next-generation superfast broadband services.
Looking at the ten countries forecast to have the biggest broadband networks by 2014 they include examples from all three groups. Point Topic would classify China, India, Russia and Brazil as emergent countries, the USA, Japan and Italy as still youthful markets, and Germany, the UK and France as mature. Their different growth rates are reflected in the relative heights of the two bars for each country.
Worldwide broadband growth << discussion
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