Dutch users of Internet telephony services topped two 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 June 28.
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.