Italy broadband accesses reach 14.7m
January 8, 2016
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Italian broadband accesses surpassed 14.7 million homes in September, representing a growth of 530,000 units on the same period in 2014, according to the quarterly report of the Communications Authority (AgCom).
ADSL lines dropped by 170,000 units y/y, to around 12.9 million, while broadband accesses that use other technologies grew by 690,000 units y/y to around 1.8 million.
Telecom Italia’s market share dropped 1.5 percentage points on an annual basis to 47.2 per cent. Wind is second with a 15.4 per cent share (+0.2 per cent), followed by Fastweb with 14.7 per cent (+0.5 per cent) and Vodafone Italia with 12.8 per cent (0.4 per cent). Other operators also increased their share to 6.8 per cent (+0.6 per cent), mainly due to the increased popularity of FWA services.
On an annual basis, accesses with speeds of ≥10 Mbps, growing by over 1.1 million, surpassed 3.9 million or 26.6 per cent of total broadband accesses. Telecom Italia, Fastweb, Vodafone and Wind account for over 85 per cent of ≥10 Mbps accesses. From the start of 2015, Wind is the operator who registered the most growth in the number of high speed accesses (+182,000).
Next Generation Access (NGA) broadband lines surpassed 1.2 million at the end of September, representing a growth of 449,000 units in the first nine months of 2015. NGA accesses accounted for 6 per cent of overall lines and 8.3 per cent of broadband lines. Fastweb and Telecom Italia jointly account for over 85 per cent of NGA lines.
The AgCom report also confirms that RAI (36.3 per cent) and Mediaset (31.8 per cent) were the leading broadcasters in terms of audience, however below 2010 levels of 41.3 per cent and 37.4 per cent, respectively. Third placed Discovery Italia, thanks partly to M&A operations, reached a 6.9 per cent share, the same as Sky-Fox.