European telcos France Telecom and Spain's Telefonica, two of the world's largest and most influential IPTV carriers, continued to post strong subscriber additions to their IPTV services during the second quarter of 2008. France Telecom added 107,000 customers during the quarter, 76 percent higher than the same period last year, and now has about 1.54 million IPTV customers throughout France, Spain and Poland. The company is still targeting an eventual TV launch in the U.K. France Telecom competitor Free did not discuss its own IPTV numbers, but did say last week that it had added 93,000 ADSL customers (it counts TV as one of several value-added services it delivers over ADSL).
Telefonica reported a 22 percent increase in IPTV customers over last year, and addition of 22,513, to bring its total IPTV customer base to 576,558 (about 27,000 more than U.S. IPTV player AT&T). Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, BT added about 50,000 users to its live video streaming service in the U.K., bringing its total to about 300,000. BT has pledged a fiber-to-the-home deployment in some parts of the U.K., which will support expansion of TV and other services at a time when competitor France Telecom is readying its competitive invasion.
Worth noting is that both France Telecom and Telefonica appear to be experiencing a slowing in their IPTV additions, at least if the progress from the first quarter of this year to the second quarter is to be believed.
For more:
- read this report [1] at Light Reading
Related articles:
France Telecom and Telefonica made our recent list of IPTV Players Worth Watching [2]
Telefonica added 43,000 IPTV subscribers in the first quarter. Telefonica report [3]
Links:
[1] http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=160520
[2] http://www.fierceiptv.com/story/special-report-iptv-players-worth-watching/2008-05-26
[3] http://www.fierceiptv.com/story/telefonica-adds-43-000-iptv-subs/2008-05-20