Omdia: Global Gigabit Broadband Users to Reach 50 Million by 2022

According to the latest report released by market research firm Omdia, the number of global gigabit broadband users is expected to increase to 50 million in 2022, more than doubling from 24 million at the end of 2020.

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The Omdia report notes that accelerated fiber deployment will help drive growth in gigabit connections.

“Demand for reliable broadband will drive growth in gigabit services, with fiber playing a key role,” said Peter Boyland, lead analyst for broadband at Omdia. “There will be fewer than 620 million fiber subscriptions globally at the end of 2020, but we expect this to grow to 719 million by 2022, representing 62% of total subscriptions. Of these, the majority of fiber internet users will be in China.”

However, Omdia warned that service providers must “carefully consider market requirements” to implement their gigabit network strategies and make targeted investments in fiber networks.

“Service providers will need to carefully plan and execute the rollout of gigabit networks, analyzing many factors, including infrastructure challenges, market competition, and expected demand,” Omdia wrote. “But this does not stop with the network rollout; operators will need to continually monitor potential competitors and continually innovate, update, and build service offerings to stay ahead of the competition.”

The analysts also noted that there are opportunities for vendors in the market to help service providers build future-proof networks. “Vendors can offer long-term solutions, such as monitoring and automation tools, to extend the operator/vendor relationship beyond network deployment,” the report suggested.

Of course, the most important thing to consumers is reliable service. According to OMDA's Digital Consumer Insights Survey, 36% of respondents said they relied more on broadband service during the pandemic, and 55% ranked reliability as the most important home broadband feature.

All this gigabit and fiber growth will impact broadband speeds in the coming years. According to Omdia: "In 2020, only 2% of broadband subscriptions were above 1Gbps, but this is expected to double to 4% by 2022."

While high-bandwidth entertainment like augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) and gaming were considered the main drivers of faster home broadband speeds before the pandemic, Omdia’s report considers these factors unimportant to the growth of gigabit internet, referring to them only as other drivers.