In an online Webinar organized by FTTH Council Europe, Principal Analyst of IDATE, Mr. Roland Montagne, presented the 2020 Fiber Market Panorama and updated the European FTTH and FTTB status up to 2019. The webinar was free for the registered users and was conducted on 23 April, 2020.
The total number of homes passed with Fibre to the Home (FTTH) and Fibre to the Building (FTTB) in the EU39 reached nearly 172 million homes compared to 160 million in 2018 with now 19 countries counting more than 2 million homes passed.
The main movers in terms of homes passed in absolute numbers are France (+3,5 M), Italy (+1,9 M) and Spain (+1,5 M). The top 5 of the annual growth rates in terms of homes passed is headed by Belgium (+307%), Ireland (+70.4%), Switzerland (+69.1%), United Kingdom (+50.8%) and Germany (33.5%).
The coverage of both FTTH and FTTB networks in September 2019 was almost 50%. By September 2019, EU39 reached a 49.9% coverage of FTTH/B networks while EU28 39.4%, compared to respectively 46.4% and 36.4% in 2018.
This shows a clear upward trend from the September 2015 figures when the coverage was at 39.8% in EU39 and 27.2% in EU28. The number of FTTH and FTTB subscribers in Europe increased by 15.0% in EU39 since September 2018 with 70.4 million FTTH/B subscribers in September 2019. Russia still plays a major role in this increase, however, it is interesting to note that the EU28 experienced a 20.9% increase on its own.
This year , the country adding the most subscribers is located in Western Europe. France added 1.923.000 new FTTH/B subscriptions and Spain came second adding 1.650.820 new FTTH/B subscribers. Other countries also experienced an outstanding increase in their number of subscribers such as Greece (+285%), Ireland (+185%), Switzerland (+176%), Belgium (+111%) and Italy (+45.3%).
By September 2019, the EU39 FTTH/B take-up rate elevated to 40.9% in comparison to the 37.4% rate registered by September 2018. For the second consecutive year, the take-up rate for EU28 surpasses the EU39’s one by reaching 43.3% (as opposed to 38.2% in September 2018). It is interesting to note that fibre technologies have been continuously evolving during the last few years with a predominance of FTTH architecture over FTTB (60% vs 40%).
Alternative Internet Service Providers are still constituting the largest part of FTTH/B players, with a contribution of around 56% of the total fibre expansion. 41% of homes are passed by former incumbent operators. This number will also evolve as some of the latter have modified their strategy deploying more FTTH solutions, migrating from existing copper based and cable-based networks towards fibre and are even intensifying copper switch-off. The role of governments and local authorities is also increasing, either directly by signing agreements with telecom players, or via public funds.
Iceland becomes a leader in FTTH/B, championing the ranking followed by Belarus (62,8%). Sweden (56.8%) reclaims the third position from Spain (54.3%) and assumes the last spot on the podium of fibre leaders.
It is worth mentioning that Belgium has significantly stepped up its efforts to deploy fibre with an increase of 307% in FTTH/B homes passed and of 111% in new subscribers. However, in 2020, for the first time in years, no new country has managed to enter the FTTH/B European ranking.
The presentation file can be downloaded from this link; 2020 Market Panorama by IDATE
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