7 March 2003 -- The underlying corporate Internet business in Western Europe remains healthy despite the disappearance of leading regional providers KPNQwest and Concert.
Probe Research reports market size in that region increased slightly during 2002 and forecasts a 71% growth between 2002 and 2007.
"Due to high-profile bankruptcies and failures, customer sentiment in Western Europe is shifting toward incumbent operators who are viewed as safer, if more expensive, suppliers," comments Probe analyst John Marcus. Providers experiencing growth include BT Ignite, Equant, AT&T, Telefonica, TeliaSonera, Telecom Italia, KPN and TeleDanmark.
Marcus notes there are large opportunities at the local and country level to serve businesses without any need for international solutions. "While most of the smaller enterprises have no IP access or are served by dial-up, ISDN or DSL, even a fraction of these companies at the higher end provides an attractive source of revenue for their low-end dedicated access needs.
The small and medium-sized segments include a large number of local and national businesses which are not on the radar of the large global providers."
Probe's recent report, "Enterprise IP Access Market in Western Europe," covers market trends and leading players in the market for enterprise IP access in Western Europe, including a five-year revenue forecast for the region.