Kagan Forecasts Strong Gains in U.S. Broadband-Only Homes

The number of broadband-only homes in the U.S. will nearly double in the next five years, according to Kagan estimates, rising from 19 million last year to 37.2 million by 2022.

“A perfect storm of long-term trends including increase in streaming content suppliers, widespread utility-like status of broadband and a demographic shift attributable to shrinking baby boomers and rising millennials, is yielding higher broadband-only home gains than initially anticipated, prompting a significant upward update for our projections,” said Tony Lenoir, senior Kagan research analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

In 2022, 38.4 percent of the combined residential cable and telco wireline broadband subscribers won’t have a legacy multichannel provider, using internet-delivered systems and over-the-air broadcast signals for their home entertainment. By then, broadband-only homes will account for 29.2 percent of U.S. occupied households. Traditional multichannel penetration will be in the low 60 percent range by then.

Kagan notes that pay-TV operators that deliver video and broadband may be in an advantageous position. Cable providers will have more than 70 million broadband customers by 2020.