On the occasion of the FTTH Conference 2024, the Market Intelligence Committee of the FTTH Council Europe launched the 2024 edition of the FTTH/B Market Panorama, presenting the latest insights in terms of FTTH/B coverage and adoption in Europe as of September 2023.
The total number of homes passed with Fibre to the Home (FTTH) and Fibre to the Building (FTTB) in the EU391 reached 244 million homes in September 2023, compared to nearly 221 million in September 2022.
The main movers in terms of homes passed in absolute numbers are the United Kingdom (+4,7 M), Germany (4,4 M), and France (+2,5 M).
The top 5 of the annual growth rates in terms of homes passed is headed by Belgium (+43%), the United Kingdom (+38%), Germany (+37%), Serbia (+30%), and Croatia (+28%). FTTH/B coverage rate in EU39 now amounts to 69,9% (up by 6,5 percentage points vs 2022) and coverage rate in the EU27+UK now reaching 64,5% (vs 55,1% from 2022). These data re-confirm the continuous upward trend observed for several years in a row now.
The number of FTTH and FTTB subscribers in the EU39 region reached 121 million. The 5 fastest growing markets in terms of new subscribers were France (+3,4 M), United Kingdom (+1,8 M), Turkey (+1 M), Spain (+985 K), and Italy (+919 K).
By September 2023, the EU39 FTTH/B take-up rate2 raised to 49.6% (up by 1,1 percentage point from the previous year). A clear indication that, despite the progress being made, there is still a huge gap between fibre coverage and adoption. Nevertheless, progress has been made in the EU27+UK area, where the take-up rate grew up by 1,3 percentage points compared to 2022, reaching 52,7 in 2023.
Overall, the contribution of EU27+UK to the total is increasing, both for home passed and subscriptions, however, the report observes that more needs to be done in terms of subscriptions to reach the 2030 Digital Decade objectives of the European Commission, as only 1 in 4 countries exceeds the 50% penetration rate.
Finally, in terms of technology choices, it is worth mentioning that gigabit-capable technologies such as 5G FWA, G.fast and Docsis 3.1/4.0 are still being deployed to meet the current home bandwidth demands, delaying FTTH in some areas.
1EU39 = EU27+UK + 4 CIS countries + Iceland, Israel, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey
2Subscribers – as a proportion of Homes Passed