| North American DSL Surpasses 16 Million in 2004 While DSL Subscriber Base in Latin America Grows More Than 100% |
“It is a significant success to have reached the 100 million subscriber milestone, with rapid growth in every region of the world”
Global DSL subscribers sailed past the 100 million mark in February 2005, according to the latest data produced for the DSL Forum by industry analyst Point Topic. Figures for 2004 reveal that people are choosing DSL for broadband access at the rate of one every second. Growth in DSL - the world's most popular broadband technology - approached 60%, with more than 96 million global DSL subscribers by the year-end. In the USA specifically, another 4.3 million DSL subscribers were added in the year, bringing the total number of US DSL subscribers to 13.7 million. Canada now has 2.65 million DSL subscribers and Latin America sits at 3.4 million, with Brazil leading the way with more than half of the region's subscribers.
Americas - Total DSL Subscribers by Country and Region, Q4 2003 to Q4 2004
------------------------------------------------------ Country Q4 03 Total Q4 04 Total ----------------------- --------------- -------------- Argentina 114,000 310,000 ----------------------- --------------- -------------- Brazil 1,013,000 1,900,000 ----------------------- --------------- -------------- Chile 200,000 260,000 ----------------------- --------------- -------------- Mexico 180,000 560,000 ----------------------- --------------- -------------- Rest of Latin America 155,000 360,000 ----------------------- --------------- -------------- Latin America Total 1,662,000 3,390,000 ----------------------- --------------- -------------- Canada 2,200,000 2,650,000 ----------------------- --------------- -------------- USA 9,400,000 13,730,000 ----------------------- --------------- -------------- North America Total 11,600,000 16,400,000 ------------------------------------------------------
Source: DSL Forum and Point Topic
Newer broadband markets showed the fastest growth throughout 2004. Detailed global charts are viewable at http://www.dslforum.org/PressRoom/0510_Factsheet.pdf. Turkey, which is now approaching half a million DSL subscribers, showed 725% increase in the year, the Czech Republic 589% and Ireland 351%. Mexico, Malaysia, New Zealand and Lithuania all experienced DSL subscriber growth of 100% or more.
Beyond the US, other established DSL markets also sustained strong growth in subscriber numbers. China, the world's largest DSL population, saw a 2004 increase in DSL subscribers of more than 8.5 million. Rapid growth in European Union subscribers in both established and emerging broadband markets, reinforced the EU's position as the number one DSL region worldwide. France came first with 3.25 million DSL subscribers added over the year. The UK grew by 2.8 million, Italy by 1.73 million and Germany by 1.4 million.
"It is a significant success to have reached the 100 million subscriber milestone, with rapid growth in every region of the world," said Steve Kingdom, newly elected president of the DSL Forum. "It is also fitting that this accomplishment was announced at CeBIT 2005, as consumer electronics and the connected home have been, and will continue to be, major drivers in DSL deployment. We must now turn our sights to facilitating the achievement of our target of 500 million DSL subscribers by 2010."
Tim Johnson of Point Topic said: "While ADSL continues to dominate current DSL connectivity, deployment increasingly includes newer DSL options. ADSL2plus is rapidly growing in Sweden, Norway and France, with trials beginning in the USA and services coming on-stream in the Netherlands in 2005. This is increasingly the basis for triple play services. VDSL had at least 5 million connections by the end of 2004 - mostly in South Korea, Japan and China. VDSL2, delivering 100 Mbps over a single phone line, may provide new impetus when that is standardized in May 2005. We are also starting to see increased roll out of symmetric DSL services, with 1.2 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 2004."
Global DSL subscriber details were announced at CeBIT 2005 (Hall 13, Stand D37), where the DSL Forum is exhibiting the interactive DSLHome(TM) Showcase, bringing CeBIT visitors the opportunity to experience firsthand how DSL can improve their customers' lives. Focusing on educating attendees about the potential of the newly evolved IP-centric DSL architecture, and the variety of exciting services that DSL empowers, the show provides a tour of the intelligent home, including hands-on demonstrations of video on demand, streaming video, IP telephony, online gaming, medical applications, parental control and video conferencing.
About the DSL Forum
The DSL Forum is an international industry consortium of more than 200 leading service providers, equipment manufacturers and other interested parties, focused on developing the full potential of broadband DSL to meet the needs of the mass market. Working to streamline processes, develop specifications and share best practices, the Forum's work sets the stage for effective deployments, and explosive global DSL growth. By evolving DSL technology to embrace new applications, the DSL Forum is tailoring DSL to meet the needs of the next generation of multi-media services and the online community. Recognized as the voice of the DSL industry, the Forum has set a target of 500 million broadband DSL subscribers by 2010. More information about the DSL Forum is available from its industry site www.dslforum.org. Information tailored to end-users is available on www.dsllife.com.
DSL - more than a phone line - it's a global solution.
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