Broadband now in more than 700 million homes worldwide

Broadband now installed in more than seven hundred million homes worldwide

The latest milestone in the relentless march of high speed internet access was passed at the end of June this year as the total number of households with a broadband line came to 700.2 million.

“Consumers love the bits and bytes delivered by the internet and they are being put to use throughout homes and offices worldwide. Broadband at home is the norm in many markets and we are starting to see the innovations and applications enabled by high bandwidth services take hold,” says Oliver Johnson, CEO at Point Topic.

It’s not the only landmark in the second quarter of 2014. China alone now accounts for more than two hundred million broadband lines. Dominating the world market for a number of years China shows little sign of slowing down.

Broadband subscribers in Q2 2014 Top Ten countries

                         Subscribers
Country                      Q2 2014
-----------------------  -----------
China (All Territories)  200,725,738
United States             97,137,446
Japan                     36,030,684
Germany                   28,982,389
France                    25,397,000
Russian Federation        24,632,170
United Kingdom            23,200,800
Brazil                    22,375,400
South Korea               18,971,730
Mexico                    16,351,659

Source: Point Topic

While there is strong growth in many markets the BRICs* report the top growth rates amongst the top twenty nations. Brazil will for example overtake the UK this year in terms of total subscriptions.

“We’re still in the foothills as far as the benefits of broadband go. The supply is one challenge but the real added value is still to come. As we start to figure out how to use what we have and perhaps more importantly how to coordinate the services and extract the synergies we’ll see more and more positive outcomes in the coming years. It’s very exciting,” says Johnson

* Brazil, Russia, India and China