Spanish broadband connections up 18.1 pct in March

MADRID, May 16 (Reuters) - Broadband Internet connections in Spain grew 18.1 percent in March to 8.4 million lines, apparently undaunted by slowing economic growth, Spain's telecoms watchdog CMT said on Friday.

That put total penetration at 18.6 lines per 100 inhabitants.

Most of those were digital subscriber line connections, which stood at 6.71 million lines, up 19.8 percent, while cable accounted for 1.69 million lines, up 11.6 percent.

In the same month the total number of mobile connections rose 5.1 percent to 50.33 million. (Reporting by Elisabeth O'Leary, editing by Will Waterman)