World Broadband Lines Top 1.45bn as UK Full Fibre Grows 7.2% in Q1 2024

The latest research from Point Topic has revealed that global fixed broadband lines grew by 1.22% (17.55 million) in Q1 2024 (down from 1.6% in Q3 2023) to end the quarter on a total of 1.45 billion connections. But the subscriber growth rate of “full fibre” (FTTP/B) networks in the UK jumped to 7.2% (up from 1.5% in Q3).

The largest regional broadband market of East Asia has continued to maintain the lion’s share of net additions of fixed broadband subscribers at 50.20% in Q1 2024, which is mainly due to China’s market size and the more than 10 million fixed broadband subscribers being added there in the quarter. By comparison, the whole of Europe (inc. UK) accounted for 17.99% of net adds in the last quarter.

NOTE: The report only examined the highest full fibre growth rates in the largest fibre markets – those with at least 0.5 million fibre broadband connections.

The data shows that, overall, both cable (hybrid fibre coax) and copper (ADSL, SDSL) based broadband connections continued to lose market share as full fibre lines cannibalised their customers. Between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, copper-based broadband lines lost -0.25% of their market share, while cable lost -0.20% and even hybrid-fibre (FTTC, G.fast) lost -0.20%, while FTTH/B/P grew by +0.64%

Changes in broadband technology market shares

The good news is that the country-specific quarterly growth of FTTP/B subscribers in Q1 2024 has seen a big improvement for the United Kingdom. Back in late 2021, and through much of 2022, it wasn’t uncommon to see the UK reporting a quarterly growth rate for related subscribers of between 12-13%. But the UK’s growth rate fell to 1.5% in Q3 2023, which is down sharply from 9.2% in Q2 and put us outside the top 10, although in Q1 2024 it has recovered to a respectable 7.2% and is now back in the top ten.

Top 10 Markets by FTTH/B Growth Rates
(countries with at least 0.5m fibre broadband subscribers)