The Dutch broadband market grew by 4.7 percent during the fourth quarter of 2006 and by 21.5 percent during 2006 to end the year with 5.042 million connections, compared with 4.15 million on 31 December 2005, according to Telecompaper's quarterly Dutch broadband report. The broadband penetration per household increased to 70.8 percent at the end of 2006 versus 58.5 percent on 31 December 2005, and penetration per 100 inhabitants increased to 30.9 percent at end-2006, compared with 25.5 percent a year earlier. The cable operators had a bad quarter with only 59,300 net additions, which caused them to end the year just shy of two million broadband customers. The ADSL ISPs added 165,000 customers during the fourth quarter ending the year with more than 3 million customers.
KPN's share on the broadband market grew to 40.5 percent, driven by KPN's no frills brand Direct ADSL. This brand, which includes all InternetPlusBellen (KPN's VoIP service) customers, added 272,000 net customers during 2006 to end the year as the sixth largest broadband ISP in the Netherlands with 476,000 customers. @Home added 19,000 net customers and is still the largest broadband ISP in the Netherlands with a total of 639,900 users. Number two ISP Planet Internet added 12,000 customers and ended the year with 601,000 users, making it the second broadband ISP with more than 600,000 customers. Chello is still the third largest broadband ISP in the Netherlands, growing by 4 percent during the fourth quarter to 565,300 broadband customers. Het Net remained in fourth place with 557,000 DSL customers. Orange Breedband (formerly Wanadoo) continued to lose customers, both ADSL and cable, dropping its market share below 10 percent and ending the year with 488,000 broadband customers. Telecompaper estimates that the Dutch broadband market will continue to grow at an average of three percent per quarter and will end 2007 with around 5.6 million connections.
