The global number of broadband subscribers reached 298 million at the end of March 2007, new research reveals.

New data from Point Topic's Global Broadband Statistics service suggests that Eastern Europe continued to grow strongly, becoming the only region to record more than 10 per cent growth in the quarter.

Romania passed the one million subscriber mark in March, helping Eastern European countries to post three of the 10 fastest growing countries worldwide. This excludes countries with fewer than 100,000 subscribers in Dec 2006.

Greece was the top grower in percentage terms, expanding by 26.8 per cent during the quarter.

"Given the prevailing growth rates it is safe to assume that the number of broadband subscribers has now passed 300 million," said Katja Mueller, research director at Point Topic.

The US remains the largest broadband country in the world and passed its own milestone of 60 million subscribers in the quarter with 2.9 million more subscribers.

China continues to push hard for the top spot, however, and had cut the gap with the US from 5.8 million at the end of 2006 to 4.1 million at the end of March 2007.

The major mover in the top 10 countries by number of subscribers was France. The country achieved the highest percentage growth rate of 9.36 per cent in the quarter and leapfrogged South Korea to fifth place.

Broadband lines at the end of March 2007:

US 60,362,830
China 56,258,499
Japan 26,533,000
Germany 16,142,750
France 15,304,900
South Korea 14,102,888
UK 13,953,000
Italy 9,348,250
Canada 8,010,139
Spain 7,185,932