Tech Stream

Broadband growth driven by Asia

18 June 2009

The ICT expo CommunicAsia is taking place in Singapore this week and their daily newsbrief (pdf link) has some interesting stats on the growth of broadband take up in the region. Their figures indicate that broadband lines topped 429.2 million globally as of the end of the first quarter of 2009 with most of that growth being driven by Asia.

The report says Asian customers now account for 45% of all broadband connections, with China now the biggest market in the world. They note that:

South and East Asia accounted for much of the Asia-Pac growth, with India registering 68.5% growth and China 24%. Emerging markets like Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia also saw high broadband growth at 49%, 61% and 142%, respectively.

However, they also suggest that Indonesia’s broadband growth shrank in the first quarter of 2009 and that it was the only Asian market besides Taiwan to see a drop in broadband subscribers.

CommunicAsia has also been used as an opportunity to showcase the latest mobile handsetswith the general trend being toward the exploding smart-phone end of the market.  Touchscreens are all the rage, although Apple seems to be noticeably absent from the event.  We’ll have more in the Tech Stream this weekend.