Analysis: UK broadband market sees declining volumes
December 15, 2023
Point Topic, a provider of broadband market intelligence, has reported that total Q3 2023 FTTH/P/B, FTTC, cable, FWA/satellite and DSL wholesale and retail connections decreased in the UK during the quarter and stood at an estimated 28.718 million down from 28.746 million q-o-q but down considerably from 29.036 million y-o-y.
The fixed broadband retail market slowdown resulted in a second consecutive quarterly loss of 27,600 net broadband subscribers (down from ~87k in Q2 2023) with y-o-y uptake growth falling by -1.09 per cent compared to -0.97 per cent in the previous quarter’s annual growth.
Overall Point Topic estimates that at the close of Q3, FTTP coverage was just over 17.4 million premises (54.5 per cent), up from 16.3 million in Q2 2023; cross the UK, 23 per cent of premises still lacked gigabit access, down from 25 per cent three months earlier.
Point Topic further estimates that BT’s Consumer division (which includes business) saw a loss of 37k subscribers; compared to Q2 2023 this represented around a 0.42 per cent decrease in the retail segment, a 4 per cent loss in new business orders and a 25 per cent loss in business contract renewals. Openreach’s FTTP connections increased by 364k q-o-q and reached 3.871 million up from 3.507 million, BT’s Consumer unit added 335k FTTP connections to reach 2.080 million up 40 per cent y-o-y.
Of the four major ISPs, Virgin Media O2 had the strongest quarter with ~41k broadband net additions, followed by Sky with ~38k, with Vodafone ~27k whilst TalkTalk continued to haemorrhage subscribers for the third Econsecutive quarter with an estimated ~200k net losses.
During the quarter, AltNets FTTx (pre-dominantly FTTH/P/B) consumer broadband base reached an overall estimated 2.325 million up from 2.260 million in Q2 2023.