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London (pte021/21.01.2005/11:30) - A half of all households in Western Europe will have a broadband Internet connection by 2010, according to new research. As the British IT portal The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk reports, a total of 72 million people will be using broadband in five years time, with the Netherlands and Scandinavia the leaders, due to their large proportion of online consumers, competitive markets and relatively low broadband prices. The study, carried out by market research specialists Forrester Research http://www.forrester.com , also found that Portugal, Greece and Ireland will trail the other countries as a result of lower overall levels of Internet use and PC ownership.
"Massive price cuts are leading to a rapidly declining broadband premium. This, combined with a continued strong supplier push, provides a major incentive to the consumer to make the switch to broadband," said Lars Godell, principal analyst at Forrester. According to the company, demand for residential broadband has surged over the last two years. Take-up grew 81 per cent in 2003 and continued to boom in 2004, clocking 28 per cent growth in the first six months alone.
However, in the majority of countries, the national broadband markets continue to be dominated by incumbent telecommunications companies, with typical market shares of 50-70 per cent. Yet in some countries broadband competition is on the rise - in the United Kingdom BT's share is down to 25 per cent, while KPN's share of the Dutch broadband market is 44 per cent. "Continued intense competition, triggered by aggressive local loop unbundling (LLU) regulation and renewed focus on broadband triple-play bundles of voice, video and data will both drive the market forward and gradually reduce incumbent telecommunications market dominance," said Godell.
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