Houten, The Netherlands, 28 May 2015 - Cable operator Ziggo became the biggest broadband provider in the Netherlands in the first quarter of 2015, according to the latest research from Telecompaper. After completing its merger with UPC Netherlands, the new Ziggo accounted for 43.9 percent of broadband connections in the country at the end of March. The cable group surpassed for the first time KPN, which ended Q1 with 40.1 percent of the market, including its brands Telfort and XS4ALL.
KPN still had the stronger quarterly performance, adding around 35,000 new broadband customers in the three months, compared to 10,000 net additions for Ziggo. KPN is profiting from growing demand for fibre broadband, which is driving growth in the overall broadband market. Telecompaper’s
latest report on mass market broadband, which covers consumer and SOHO users, found the total Dutch market grew by 1.1 percent during the first quarter of 2015 to end at 7.008 million connections.
While cable still accounted for almost half the connections, fibre is growing the fastest, with subscriber numbers up almost 7 percent in Q1 to reach a market share of nearly 12 percent. This is coming mainly at the expense of DSL, which lost 0.7 percent to finish the period with just over 2.9 million users.
“Despite the increasingly saturated market, the broadband market is expected to grow by 2.3 percent in 2015,” said Telecompaper Research Analyst Kamiel Albrecht. “Continued growth in cable and fibre will offset the steady decrease in DSL users.” For the period 2015-2019, Telecompaper expects a CAGR of 1.9 percent per year in the number of broadband connections.
The above figures come from Telecompaper’s latest quarterly report ‘
Dutch Broadband Q1 2015’. The report provides a detailed overview of the broadband market, including data on connections, revenues and market shares for the main providers and network technologies in the Netherlands. It also looks at the key market trends affecting broadband growth. Telecompaper estimates the Dutch consumer broadband market was worth over EUR 460 million in retail revenue in the first quarter of 2015. The revenues are expected to grow at a CAGR of 1.0 percent over the five-year period 2015-2019.