Dutch Broadband Grows 0.3% in Q1, KPN Slightly Loses Market Share

The Dutch market for fixed broadband has grown by 0.3 percent during the first quarter of 2018 to reach 7.44 million connections, according to Telecompaper’s quarterly report on the broadband market. The number of cable and fibre broadband connections grew enough to off-set the continued decrease in DSL (copper) broadband lines. Number two KPN lost customers and market shares during the quarter.

During Q1 2018, cable broadband connections grew by 0.6 percent to 3.44 million and fibre broadband in the Netherlands grew by 1.8 percent to 1.17 million. At the same time, DSL broadband dropped by 0.7 percent to 2.83 million.
KPN loses broadband customers, market share
In the first quarter, KPN lost 8,000 broadband customers to reach 3.035 million at the end of March. Its market share dropped 0.2 percentage points during the quarter to 40.8 percent. Compared to Q1 2017, KPN’s market share grew by 0.4 percentage points, mainly due to the acquisition of Solcon in Q3 2017.Ziggo continues as market leader following a quarterly growth of 0.6 percent to 3.261 million broadband customers and a market share of 43.8 percent. This is 0.1 percentage points more than in Q4 2017 and 0.4 percentage points higher than in Q1 2017.

The Dutch broadband market further consists of smaller players of which Tele2 and T-Mobile that are in the middle of merger approval process. Of those two, Tele2 is het largest on with a market share of 4 percent on the Dutch broadband market after losing 0.1 percentage points during the first quarter. T-Mobile saw its market share grow by 0.1 percentage points during the quarter to 2.7 percent. Together they will have less than 7 percent, far behind market leaders Ziggo and KPN.

Cable broadband is the largest technology on the Dutch broadband market with slightly more than 46 percent followed by DSL with 38 percent and fibre with 15.8 percent.

Broadband revenues grow by 0.5% in Q1 2018
The revenues from broadband connections grew by 0.5 percent during the first quarter to reach EUR 490 million. For the full year 2018, Telecompaper expects a revenue growth of 1.4 percent to 1.944 billion, with the price hikes as announced by KPN, Telfort, XS4ALL, Ziggo, Delta and Caiway will cause a growth acceleration in the second half of 2018.Telecompaper expects an average annual growth in broadband lines of 1 percent for the five year period 2018-2022 and an average annual growth of broadband revenues of 0.9 percent. – Telecompaper