Commentary
A Million New High Speed Internet Users Added Last Year
- by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, April 6, 2006
The twenty largest cable and DSL providers in the US, representing about 94% of the market, achieved record net high-speed Internet additions in 2005, according to a performance review by Leichtman Research Group. Net additions for the year totaled over 9.6 million subscribers - a total that exceeded the previous record set in 2004 by over 1 million subscribers.
Other key findings for the quarter include:
- As of the end of 2005, the top broadband providers accounted for over 42.8 million high-speed Internet subscribers
- The top cable broadband providers now have a 57% share of the overall market versus DSL, and account for over 24.3 million high-speed Internet subscribers compared to 18.5 million for DSL
- The top DSL providers netted 54% of the broadband additions in 2005
- DSL providers added over 5.2 million broadband subscribers in 2005
- Cable operators added about 4.4 million broadband subscribers in 2005
The fourth quarter of 2005 was the best quarter ever for DSL providers, adding nearly 1.5 million net additional DSL subscribers, capturing 57% of the net 2.64 million high-speed Internet additions for the quarter. Cable operators added virtually the same number of subscribers during the quarter as a year ago, while DSL providers added about 350,000 more subscribers than in the fourth quarter of 2004
With about 10 million additional broadband subscribers in the US in 2005, the number of net broadband additions has increased every year this decade.
DBS Industry by the Numbers | |||||
| Subscribers | Net Adds in 2005 | Total New Subscribers | Subscriber Acquisition Cost | Average Revenue Per Sub/Month |
DIRECTV | 15,133,000 | 1,193,000 | 4,170,000 | $642 | $66.61 |
EchoStar | 12,040,000 | 1,135,000 | 3,397,000 | $668 | $57.81 |
Total DBS | 27,173,000 | 2,328,000 | 7,567,000 |
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Sources: The Companies and Leichtman Research Group, Inc. | |||||
Top 10 Cable MSOs in the U.S. | ||||||
| Passings | Subscribers | Availability | Penetration | Net Adds in 2005 | Net Adds in 2004 |
Basic Cable | 109,668,000 | 58,066,750 |
| 52.9% | (268,700) | (639,200) |
Digital Cable | 109,350,000 | 26,845,000 | 99.7% | 24.6% | 2,884,300 | 2,575,000 |
Broadband Internet | 107,450,000 | 24,093,000 | 98% | 22.4% | 4,370,900 | 4,355,400 |
Telephone | 55,120,000 | 5,068,500 | 50% | 9.2% | 1,928,400 | 764,600 |
Sources: The Companies and Leichtman Research Group, Inc. | ||||||
Totals reflect pro forma results from system sales and acquisitions, includes LRG estimates for Cox and Bright House Networks.
For a PDF download of the report, please go here.
Jack Loechner is the Editor of The Center for Media Research's daily Research Brief. You can reach him at jack@mediapost.com.