Bucking downward trends, cable sees growth:EU industry report released today projects positive growth for 2010
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(Brussels, 29 September 2009): Cable Europe and Cable Europe Labs released a new report by Solon Management Consulting on the state of play of the European cable market, “Cable in Europe: Delivering the Future Today”, which shows sustainable growth, outperformance of the general European economy and continued investments in high speed fibre networks for European consumers against the backdrop of heightened EU political will to push broadband penetration to 100% by 2010.
Cable Europe President, Manuel Kohnstamm said, “Fibre-driven growth and high speed capabilities are proving cable’s resilience. And these results are good news for Europe. Broadband penetration is significantly higher in active cable markets where we are challenging incumbents with investments in fibre speed for European consumers. Our CEOs estimate that 40% of customers will be using speeds between 10-50Mbps by 2012. This is only the beginning as we’re looking at download speed capabilities of up to 400 Mbps – fast enough to leave DSL way behind.”
The report is the first of its kind as it gives a broad overview of the cable industry in Europe, growth estimates and identifies EU policy challenges. With the issue of the economy at the top of political agendas throughout Europe, the cable industry’s growth stands out among industry peers.
“We’re not shy about how proud we are of our high re-investment in Europe’s networks. We own these fibre-powered networks – our not so secret weapon – and we use them to compete with incumbents, and have seen 10% year on year growth as a result of being an alternative for the European consumer. Outperforming the overall economy in the current conditions is no small feat even though we’re small compared to our competitors and still manage to drive the broadband market,” commented Cable Europe Managing Director, Caroline van Weede.
The forecasts released today indicate 6-8% revenue increases for 2009-2010 and point to the cable industry’s bigger footprint in the wider EU debate on growth and employment. Given the local infrastructure aspect of the cable industry, the findings have characterized its growth “as both local and sustainable,” according to Solon Management Consulting.
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