The Dutch broadband internet market grew by 0.3% in the third quarter of 2018 to 7.48 million connections, according to Telecompaper’s quarterly report on the Dutch fixed broadband market.
Quarterly growth came mainly from T-Mobile (+17,000) and Ziggo (+13,000), which outweighed the decline of Tele2 (-7,000) and KPN Group (-5,000).
Cable remains the most widely used broadband technology after a quarterly growth from 0.4% to 3.46 million connections. However, fiber optics grew faster, by 0.8% to 1.21 million connections. At the same time, DSL broadband decreased by 0.1% to 2.81 million.
Ziggo remains market leader after a quarterly growth of 0.4% to 3,286 million broadband customers. This equates to a market share of 43.9%, the same as in Q2 2018 and 0.3 percentage points more than in Q3 2017. KPN (including Telfort, XS4ALL and Solcon) saw its market share decline by 0.2% to 40.4% in the quarter. The 0.5% decline in the quarter brought the group to 3.023 million broadband connections.
In addition to Ziggo and KPN, there are a number of smaller players in the market, including Tele2 and T-Mobile, which will merge in Q1 2019 following the recent approval of the transaction by the European Commission. Of these, Tele2 is the largest on the broadband market with 3.8%, 0.1 percentage points lower than in Q2 2018. T-Mobile has actually grown in the third quarter, by 0.2% to reach 3%. Together, these parties therefore hold just under seven percent of the broadband market, far behind Ziggo and KPN.
Revenue from broadband connections in the third quarter amounted to EUR 511 million, 4.8% more than in Q3 2017. The growth is due to more broadband connections and also to price increases implemented at KPN and its Telfort and XS4ALL brands, as well as at Ziggo. For the full year 2018, Telecompaper expects sales to grow 4.8% to EUR 2.02 billion.
For the period 2018-2022, the research firm forecasts an average annual growth of 1% in the number of broadband connections and an average annual growth in turnover of 1.5%.