The number of household broadband connections continues to experience solid growth and one in five households globally will have a fixed broadband connection by the end of 2009, according to a new report from Gartner.
A total of 422 million households will have a fixed broadband connection in 2009, up from 382 million households in 2008, and the market will continue to grow with nearly 580 million connections by 2013.
“Consumers may be watching their household expenditure, but dropping their broadband connections is not on the top of their agendas as a way to reduce outgoings,” said Amanda Sabia, principal research analyst at Gartner.
“Multiple motivations are conspiring to keep broadband growth strong, such as PCs being more affordable, migration from dial-up, affordably priced broadband subscriptions, aging populations requiring broadband connectivity, and even as a result of an economic boost from country-specific economic and broadband-specific stimulus plans.”
At the end of 2008, 21 countries had broadband connections in at least 50 percent of homes. In many countries the rates are much higher. The highest penetration is in South Korea at 86 percent and lowest is Indonesia at less than 1 percent.
Gartner predicts over the next five years, the emerging markets (China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Latin American countries, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa) will combined provide twice as many new consumer broadband connections as mature markets: 135 million vs. 62 million connections respectively.
Currently the U.S. the broadband household penetration rate is 60 percent and Gartner forecasts that to climb to 78 percent in 2013.
