2016
Report: Global Broadband Subscribers Will Exceed One Billion by 2020
The number of fixed global broadband subscribers continues to grow and will exceed one billion worldwide by year-end 2020, according to new market forecasts from Point Topic, which recently expanded its residential and fixed broadband market coverage to encompass 114 countries.
In providing its latest market forecasts of global broadband subscribers Point Topic forecasts 1.07 billion subscribers by 2022.
Growth will continue fastest in South and East Asia, where broadband penetration lags that of regions where infrastructure is more developed, such as North America and Western Europe, according to Point Topic. Fixed broadband connections will increase steadily over the period in those more developed regional markets, but at a slower pace, the market research provider says.
Source: Point Topic
Other researchers, including Pew, have found that broadband adoption rates in the U.S. seem to be reaching a plateau. Average broadband connection speeds continue to rise, however.
More than a third (35%) of U.S. broadband users experienced broadband-level average connection speeds of 15 Mbps or higher in the first quarter of 2016, according to Akamai’s latest State of the Internet report. That was a 63% increase in the 15 Mbps broadband adoption rate over the same period a year earlier and an 11% increase over the previous quarter.
The increase likely reflects growing use of high-bandwidth offerings, particularly streaming video, as well as increased availability of high-bandwidth services.
Akamai also found that 57% of U.S. broadband users experienced speeds of at least 10 Mbps, up 29% over the previous year and 7% over the previous quarter.
Image courtesy of flickr user Sean MacEntee.
