Take-up of broadband connections in the EU25 continues to accelerate, according to figures released this week by the European Commission.
As of 01-January-2005, there were 40,064,671 broadband lines in services across the EU — an increase of 16.5 million broadband lines over 2004, representing a growth of 70%. This increase represents 45,000 new broadband lines on average per day for the year, up from 29,000 per day in 2003. Growth accelerated during the second half of 2004, with 9.9 million lines added.
The vast majority of the new broadband connections were xDSL (14,258,273 lines). Incumbent fixed line operators provided 66% of these new lines, down from 74% in January 2004.
However, while overall European performance is strong, the picture across individual Member States is diverse. Broadband take-up is higher than 10% in 9 countries compared with only 4 such countries in January 2004. The Netherlands, with take-up of 19%, and Denmark with 18%, top the list and are among the best-performing countries in the world in terms of broadband take-up. Belgium, Sweden and Finland also show strong take-up.
There is a second group of countries where the take-up rate is around 8%. In the third group of countries, the penetration rate is below 6% of the population.
The Netherlands is also the fastest growing country for broadband with the UK, France, Denmark, and Finland also growing rapidly. Among the new Member States, Estonia is performing very well.
A 34-page report on European broadband trends is available online.http://europa.eu.int/information_society/index_en.htm
