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7 February 2013

Mobile broadband subscriptions near 700 million in the OECD area

The OECD has just released an update on broadband penetration rates as of June 2012. It finds that mobile broadband subscriptions have reached nearly 700 million in OECD countries. Switzerland and Korea continue to top the OECD ranking for fixed and wireless broadband respectively.

Mobile broadband has experienced healthy growth (18%) in the last 12 months, largely driven by continuing strong demand for tablets and smartphones. The average penetration in the OECD area is 56.6 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, for a total number of nearly 700 million subscriptions (698.6 million). Korea (104.2) and Sweden (101.8) top the table, being the only two countries with more wireless broadband subscriptions than inhabitants.

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Fixed wired broadband subscriptions reached 321 million in the OECD area in June 2012, for an average penetration of 26 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, a 1.4% increase over the previous six months. New Zealand (+4.6%) and Chile (+3.9%) experienced the highest growth, whereas Poland’s (-2.1%) and Iceland’s (-0.6%) penetration slightly decreased.

DSL subscriptions are slowly being replaced by fibre. The share of fibre subscriptions in fixed broadband has increased to 14.2%, while DSL represented 54.7% of the total fixed wired broadband subscription. By the end of 2009, fibre subscriptions only accounted for 11.2% of total fixed broadband. Cable (30.4%) accounted for most of the remaining subscriptions.

It should be noted that Australia made a methodological change in its data collection for June 2012 for wireless mobile broadband. Further information is available in the notes to the wireless mobile broadband table (Graph 1d at the link below).

Data and charts for the June 2012 broadband statistics are available at:
www.oecd.org/sti/ict/broadband
 
For comment or further information, journalists should contact: Agustin Diaz-Pines (agustin.diaz-pines<a>oecd.org or tel. + 33 1 45 24 19 62) or Frédéric Bourassa (frederic.bourassa<a>oecd.org or tel. + 33 1 45 24 81 42) of the OECD’s Information, Communications and Consumer Policy division.

Related Documents

OECD Broadband Portal