France: 14.9m FTTH subs
May 17, 2021
The number of French FTTH subscribers is set to surpass IPTV customers for the first time this year.
According to the ninth edition of the National Observatory for High Speed Broadband (HSB), co-authored by Infra-Num, la Banque des Territoires and Avicca, the numbers of FTTH subscribers will reach 14.9 million in Metropolitan France in 2021, with a forecast to reach 25.5 million by 2025. The highest IPTV level was registered in 2014 at 22.6 million subscribers.
The French HSB market is currently seeing the strongest growth in Europe, and has added 2.8 million new FTTH/B subscribers in the last year. In September 2020, 21.4 million homes were passed.
A total of 6.2 million additional connections should be deployed over 2021 including 3.6 million to a public initiative network in less densified areas, where numbers have doubled and are now representing almost 60 per cent of all developments. In 2022, 87 per cent of buildings will be FTTH passed, versus 59 per cent back in 2020. Some 5.8 million new buildings will be passed in 2022 and 6.5 million in 2025.
The study, however, points out that the 100 per cent fibre objective won’t be reached without a universal service backed by dedicated funding.