Telecom operators worldwide added 46 million new DSL subscribers in the 12 months to 30-June-2006, pushing the total, global installed DSL base to 164 million, according to the latest data produced for the international DSL Forum by industry analyst Point Topic. This represents a growth of 38% in the 12 months.
Some key findings:
- European Union (EU) countries added 18 million DSL accounts, a growth of 45% that reinforces the region's global leadership. There are more than 56 million DSL subscribers in the EU, accounting for more than one-third of the global total.
- South and South East Asia increased its global market share of total DSL subscribers to 22%, adding more than 13 million new subscribers in the 12 months to 30 June 2006.
- China contributed the bulk of this growth (up 11.6 million), and India began to establish its broadband society, adding more than 1.3 million subscribers to DSL, the fastest growing market worldwide. Latin America added more than three million DSL subscribers, with Brazil (up 1.19 million) and Mexico (up 939,000) leading the way. In the Middle East and Africa, growth was dominated by Turkey (up 1.3 million) -- the second fastest moving DSL subscriber market worldwide.
- In North America, DSL is steadily increasing its share of the total broadband market and now accounts for more than 46% of the region's broadband subscribers. In the period, broadband DSL (up 6.36 million) added more subscribers than cable modem (up 5.45 million), with growth in Canada (DSL up 22.2%) and the USA (DSL up 32.7%) both far outstripping cable modem growth.
- At 30-June-2006, 16 countries had passed the two million DSL subscriber mark -- Australia, Turkey and Mexico achieving that number in the period.
- China extended its DSL population to 33 million, the largest of any country and more than 10 million subscribers ahead of the USA in second place. Of the emerging DSL nations, significant subscriber increases were seen in Vietnam (147% increase), the Czech Republic (143%), Morocco (141%) and Russia (130%).
- In eight countries, over 25% of telephone lines are now delivering broadband services over DSL, rising to a third in France and almost 40% in Finland.
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