UK ISP Numbers

As with the US ISP market previously, I have just finished an analysis of the DSL and Cable Access market in the UK. I worked with the ITU published data for Broadband usage numbers and Neilson Ratings to get an accurate picture as well all the reports and disclosures for each of the ISPs shown below. I believe these figures represent a reasonably accurate representation of the genuine adoption of broadband either via DSL or Cable. Broadband connections included in this data cover download speeds equal to or faster than 256kbit/s. Dial-up is collapsing very fast and very few of the ISPs offer any user numbers.

ISP		Total	% of UK Accts
BT		4,074,000	27.56%
Virgin Media		3,590,000	24.28%
CPW (inc AOL)		2,500,000	16.91%
Tiscali UK		2,000,000	13.53%
Orange		1,142,000	7.72%
Sky		1,000,000	6.76%
Kingston		140,851	0.95%
Thus		132,000	0.89%
Entanet		80,000	0.54%
Clara.net UK		72,000	0.49%
Breathe		20,000	0.14%
Supanet		8,000	0.05%
Others		26,000	0.18%
Total		14,784,851	100%

There has been considerable consolidation of the UK market over the past year. Most recently we have seen the acquisition by Tiscali of Homechoice and Pipex's user base, Sky's acquisition of Easynet and CPW acquiring the AOL userbase. With the entry last month of O2 into the fixed Broadband market with a very competitive offering and Vodafone flexing its muscles acquiring Tele 2's operations in Spain and Italy, the race to mop up the remaining minnows is likely to continue into 2008. In particular the continued independence of Thus and Kingston in this market must be considered to be in question. Maybe C&W with their improved fiscal results would see the Telecoms operations of Thus and Kingston a good fit, allowing for the broadband base to be sold to the aggressive Sky! Certainly 2008 is likely to be as exciting as the last 18 months and we may see the top six consolidate further with Sky possibly making a play for Tiscali and achieve their stated aim of 3 million users by the end of 2008.