Excite@Home, the leader in broadband, today announced that the company surpassed the two million-subscriber mark for the high-speed, always-on @Home service. Excite@Home is the first company to achieve this milestone. This figure does not include subscribers to be contributed by chello broadband to Excite Chello, the formation of which was announced in July. The announcement also underscores strong growth momentum for broadband access and its emergence as a mainstream service for consumers.
“Clearly consumers want a high-speed, always-on Internet connection through which to experience content and communication services in our optimized environment. This rapid subscriber growth reinforces the strength of the broadband market, which will only gain momentum in the coming years,” said George Bell, chairman and CEO, Excite@Home. “Our cable partners have been instrumental in helping us to achieve this milestone through their efforts at system upgrades and customer installations. Subscriber numbers will continue to explode as people increasingly realize the benefits of a fast, always-on connection coupled with rich, personalized content.”
Broadband on the Rise
In September 1996, when the @Home service launched in its first market, few consumers had ever heard of broadband. The market has since then exploded. In 1997, there were fewer than 200,000 broadband subscribers worldwide (source: Multimedia Telecommunications Association). That figure is projected to jump to 4.4 million by the end of 2000 — representing 22 times growth (source: eMarketer). Analysts predict that the there will be 13 million broadband users by the end of 2002 (source: eMarketer).
While it took nearly four years for the Excite@Home service to sign up one million subscribers (in December 1999), consumers have rapidly embraced the advantages of broadband, such that the next one million subscribers were added in about eight months. Excite@Home continues to target three million total subscribers by year end 2000, excluding subscribers to be added through the Excite Chello transaction. The combination of media with connectivity has proven to be popular with consumers — broadband page views have more than doubled since the launch of the Excite(SM) broadband portal.
Excite@Home continues to rank first in total North American broadband and eighth in total subscribers when measured against dial-up ISPs (source: Jefferies and Company). In markets where the service is available, @Home routinely becomes the #2 ISP within two years of launch.
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