After many go-go years, fixed broadband growth seems to slow, especially in more mature markets. Sure, parts of Asia and Africa still show strong growth, but the overall trend doesn’t look good, according to PointTopic Research. The global broadband demand for 2022 saw the total connections grow to 1.362 billion — still up 6.65 percent from 1.277 billion in 2021. “Global fixed broadband subscriber growth was the second slowest in the last four quarters and stood at 1.43%,” the report notes.
The shining star of 2022 has been the Indian market. After growing nearly 8.15% in the third quarter of 2022, India grew another 3.85% in the fourth quarter, remaining the fastest-growth market in the world. It is now the seventh on the list of broadband nations by subscribers, behind China, the United States, Japan, Brazil, Germany, and Russia.
At the end of 2022, fiber accounted for 65.7 percent of the total market, while cable and ADSL saw their share decrease to 16.3% and 8.8%, respectively. Satellite broadband was up 5.8%, and fixed wireless grew by 2.1%.
More notably, the researchers saw a decline in broadband subscriptions in a dozen countries, including emerging markets. I suspect more and more people are finding that 5G networks are good enough for them to cut back on fixed connections — especially as economies have started to slow down worldwide.
Full report here at PointTopic Research.
