According to the latest figures published by the Broadband Forum and prepared by broadband industry analysts Point Topic, broadband has passed another major milestone with the global total number of broadband subscribers soaring to over 600 million in the first quarter of 2012.

At CommunicAsia in Singapore, it was announced that the figures have highlighted the dominant position of Asia, led in both broadband and in IPTV by China. Asia continues to be the biggest overall region with 262,080,147 subscribers in total, having added 8,575,397 new lines at a growth rate of 3.38% in the quarter and 15.19% in the year.

Across the region, Russia, Brazil and India all continue to show above average growth rates with Ukraine and Turkey also showing high growth. China had the highest number of new subscribers with annual growth of 26.4 million. The highest annual growth rates are Russia’s 27.43% and Ukraine’s 26.82%, with China, India and Brazil also posting double-digit annual increase.

IPTV, the most demanding application for high speed broadband, now has 65.6 million subscribers, showing a 3.8 million increase in the quarter with the Asian market advancing the fastest with China taking the lead, having three times as many IPTV subscribers in the quarter as any other country.

Robin Mersh, CEO of the Broadband Forum commented: “The demand for connectivity and the efforts of the industry all point to a world in which billions of devices are connected via the Internet. As this happens, the need for robust standards and the importance of interoperability will grow.”