AMSTERDAM – Dutch users of Internet telephony services topped 2 million in the first quarter but growth is expected to slow in the second quarter due to limits imposed by market leader KPN, a survey showed on Thursday.
The number of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) subscribers increased by more than 17 percent to 2.1 million in the first quarter, market research group Telecompaper said.
Telecoms company KPN was the largest VoIP provider, with a market share of more than 30 percent.
«Compared with quarterly growth percentages of 17 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006 and 29 percent in the third quarter of 2006, the digital telephony market growth is slowing down considerably,» said Telecompaper analyst Kamiel Albrecht.
The slowdown is due to KPN’s decision to limit the number of new VoIP customers to 5,000 a week, the research group said.
It forecast second quarter VoIP user growth of about 10 percent or around 200,000 net additions, with the total number of users estimated at about 2.8 million at end-2007 against an initial figure of 3 million.
KPN, which suffered teething problems when it rolled out its VoIP service, has said it plans to gradually increase its order intake for the service to 8,000-9,000 per week from 5,000-6,000 now.
«As KPN receives more orders and can handle them, then growth can be 20 percent in the third quarter,» said Albrecht.
Fuente: Reuters
