Trends & Metrics

Broadband Forum/Point Topic: IPTV subs double again

Dan O'Shea — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:14:36 -0400

The Broadband World Forum Asia is going on in Hong Kong this week, and the Broadband Forum (formerly the DSL Forum) thought it was a good place and time to announce that global broadband subscribers now number 370 million, while global IPTV subscribers now amount to almost 15.5 million. The research was compiled for the Broadband Forum by Point Topic, and the results highlight a doubling of IPTV subscribers for the second straight year.

IPTV is seen as driving sign-up to fiber broadband networks worldwide, with more than 10 million people now connected to fiber networks. Fiber network subscriptions are up 33 percent since the beginning of 2007. However, it may come as a surprise to some that the leading technology delivering IPTV today is ADSL2plus, with 12.1 million subscribers, according to the Forum's press release on the numbers. About 8.4 million of all IPTV subscribers are in European countries. Here are more details from the Broadband Forum release on the Point Topic research:

Regional IPTV subscriber growth worldwide, first quarter 2007 and 2008

     Region                              Q1 2007             Q1 2008

    Europe                             3,875,266           8,425,370

    Asia-Pacific                       1,129,355           2,619,035

    North America                        850,601           2,258,601

    South and East Asia                1,353,000           2,086,000

    Latin America                          2,300              11,183

    Middle East and Africa                10,000              10,000

    TOTAL                              7,220,522          15,410,189

"IPTV operators around the world have shown that systems are scalable and can handle rapid growth in subscriber numbers," said Point Topic Senior Analyst John Bosnell in the release. 
"However, developing and agreeing standards will help these operators deliver IPTV more simply and effectively over a variety of access technologies and help to drive higher up take in other markets."

For more:
- See the MarketWatch story

Related articles:
Global IPTV to see 52% annual growth through 2012 IPTV growth report
U.S. IPTV market to grow to $14 billion by 2012 U.S. IPTV report

MRG: IPTV subs to hit 92.8 million in 2012

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:59:30 -0400

Market research firm MRG is forecasting the number of IPTV subscribers globally will zoom to 92.8 million by 2012, from just more than 24 million this year. In the latest edition of its bi-annual study, MRG also says service revenue will hit $37.1 billion by 2012, and that capital spending will reach $5.5 billion that same year. In addition, consolidation in IPTV equipment and technology sectors is likely to continue. MRG also says that IPTV service success thus far does not seem to have been slowed amid overall economic uncertainty.

Meanwhile, ABI Research also has put out a new study suggesting service providers should begin shifting their IPTV strategies from focusing on service availability and initial customer sign-up to competitive differentiation.

For more:
- see this press release from MRG
- read this press release from ABI Research

Related articles:
- TMG sees 60 million IPTV subs by 2010. TMG report
- Parks Associates just tallied about 14 million IPTV subscribers. Parks Associates report
- Global IPTV market leaders. IPTV report

Synergy sees IPTV gear spending up 47%

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:59:20 -0400

Synergy Research Group reported that sales of IPTV equipment worldwide rose about 47% during 2007. SRG said that Cisco Systems was the chief beneficiary of that spending, receiving about 59% of all IPTV-related carrier capital spending globally. Alcatel-Lucent received about 13% and Motorola about 11%. With carriers like Verizon Communications, AT&T, TeliaSonera and others still adding hundreds of thousands of new IPTV subscribers every quarter, market confidence is increasing and carriers continue to buy more gear to continue rapid expansion.

For more:
- read this report at IPTV News

Related articles:
IPTV households worldwide number 14 million IPTV report
U.S. IPTV market to grow to $14 billion by 2012 Report
Euro IPTV growth driven by local loop access Report
Top European IPTV drivers Report

AT&T adds 148,000 U-verse TV customers

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:59:50 -0400

AT&T said in its first-quarter earnings report today that it gained about 148,000 U-verse TV subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total IPTV service tally to about 379,000. Though Verizon Communications continues to set the high mark for U.S. telcos, with more than 1 million FiOS TV customers, AT&T is posting strong growth quarter by quarter as it puts some early growing pains in the past. The telco said it is on track to obtain 1 million U-verse TV customers by the end of this year. If you add satellite TV customers into the mix, AT&T now serves about 2.6 million TV customers total.

Yet, success in this new business arena and in wireless are not allowing AT&T to skate through the otherwise unstable landline telecom sector. The company last week said it would lay off more than 4,600 employees, though it still intends to keep hiring for jobs specific to growth areas such as TV and wireless. Many industry watchers are predicting other telcos will make similar cuts this year as they try to focus on what will be the core telco businesses of the future.

For more:
- see this AT&T press release

Related articles:
- AT&T recently rolled out U-verse TV in Chicago. AT&T report
- Verizon recently reported that FiOS TV had reached 1 million homes. Verizon report

TMG sees 60 million IPTV subs by 2010

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:59:30 -0400

Telecommunications Management Network Group put out the a market study showing that there were about 9.9 million IPTV subscribers worldwide at the end of 2007. But, the truly explosive growth is about to happen, according to TMG. The agency is forecasting 500 percent growth over the next two years, allowing worldwide IPTV subscribers to reach 60 million in 2010. There have been several recent IPTV market research reports, and everyone is putting out somewhat different numbers. For example, Parks Associates recently said current sign-ups worldwide are closer to 14 million. Place your bets.

For more:
- check out this coverage at IPTV News

Related articles:
- Parks Associates just tallied about 14 million IPTV subscribers. Parks Associates report
- Global IPTV market leaders. IPTV report

Global study sees 14 million IPTV homes

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:59:40 -0400

Still looking for evidence that IPTV is for real? The number of households using telco IPTV services jumped from 4.7 million in 2006 to 14 million this year, according to a new report from Parks Associates. Of course, getting them to sign up is just half the battle. You know the other half.

For more:
- read this story at WorldScreen.com

U.S. IPTV install times worst in world

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:59:40 -0400

How many technicians does it take to install IPTV in a household in North America? Sound like a bad joke? Well, the punchline isn't very funny either: Just one, but it takes about 5.16 hours, the slowest install time in the world, according to a study distributed by Research and Markets.

Overall install times across Asia, Europe and North America come in at 3.79 hours from curb to the third STB. For one-STB homes, the install time was 2.25 hours.

Analyst Gary Schultz said North American install times are coming down, but that they take longer because there are more new operators and they're offering more--like triple play services of voice, video and data or, at a minimum, a dual play of high-speed data and video--which adds to the overall install time.

"Another thing that increases the time is if you use wireline versus 802.11 or powerline, it is going to take you longer to set it up," Schultz said. "Europe tends to use more powerline type networking, which means their install numbers are lower. Also, level of experience--how long have you been doing it? If you are an operator that's just starting out, your times are going to be way up there. If you've been doing this for three to six years as a lot of these European and some Asian installations have been doing, that is going to be knocking your times down, because you'll get a lot better at it."

For more on IPTV install times:
- Read the article in Telephonyonline
- Or the release from Research and Markets

Related article:
Simplicity is key to IPTV deployment in U.S.

Global IPTV to see 52% annual growth through 2012

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 07:59:50 -0400

Global IPTV subscriptions should top 65 million by 2012, a staggering leap from the 13 million households worldwide that currently are receiving broadcast via the Internet, says a new report from IMS Research, IPTV: A Global Market Analysis - 2008. Analyst Shane Walker writes that the 52 percent annual growth in the market will be driven by several factors including:

Growing offerings by tier one and rural telcos in the Americas;
A more competitive pay-TV market that's offering more localized content and triple- and quadruple-play offerings as well as new Internet-based TV services like VOD;
An exploding market in Asia as China and South Korea uptake IPTV at an accelerating pace with the easing of government restrictions, and
A continuation of the solid growth the European market has seen as IPTV providers continue to invest heavily in infrastructure and speed upgrades.

Shipment of stand-alone set-top boxes will grow to 21 million from the 4.7 million set out in 2006, with hybrid STBs, particularly satellite/IP boxes, seeing even more rapid deployment to the tune of 39 million units in 2012, Walker predicts.

Much of the growth, said Walker, will be the result of falling prices for STBs, as chipmakers integrate multiple codecs into single chips, competition, bandwidth upgrades and an evolving consumer base that will move away from DVD to HD boxes. Increasingly, HD boxes utilizing the MPEG-4 AVC codec will replace older SD boxes. MPEG-4 AVC is also being incorporated immediately into many new deployments, and MPEG-2 IP STB shipments are forecast to begin decreasing in 2010.

Telcos are pushing forward in the digital TV market as they see triple- and quadruple-play offerings from cable and satellite companies reduce churn and eat into the telcos' traditional voice business. Walker said telcos increasingly believe their best defense against the erosion of their market share is to offer their own bundled offerings, including IPTV. And, he said, that will push price points even further down.

For more:
- Get the entire report from IMS Research

Related articles:
U.S. IPTV market to grow to $14 billion by 2012 Report
Euro IPTV growth driven by local loop access Report
Top European IPTV drivers Report
Telcos to change IPTV tactics Report

U.S. IPTV market to grow to $14B by 2012

Tom Burton — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:59:50 -0400

IPTV revenues will grow rapidly to $14 billion in 2012 up from $694 million in 2007, according to a forecast report by Strategy Analytics. The revenues however will be largely driven by network deployment of the two dominant carriers, Verizon and AT&T. The report is bullish about IPTV revenue growth but concedes this will largely be powered by the rollout of the two IPTV networks FiOS and U-verse.

The report finds providers have only a limited number of "levers" to pull, and should try to think holistically in terms of an overall customer experience. "ARPU is expected to remain relatively stable throughout the forecast period, and service growth will come largely from an increased number of IPTV-passed homes, and higher take-up rates," says report author Ben Piper.

The same point is made by ABI in their Global IPTV Market report which predicts the IPTV market to grow from 13 million subscribers in 2007 to over 90 million in 2013. Report author Cesar Bachelet says U.S. growth will largely be driven by the speed of the fiber roll-outs. ABI sees sharp increases in IPTV growth in Asia as regulatory and infrastructure issues are resolved and solid European growth. Bachelet said he was predicting West and Eastern Europe to grow from 7.2 million subscribers in 2007 to over 30 million subscribers by 2013. To better understand the drivers of European IPTV growth read our special feature.

The ABI report is in the middle of the pack in terms of global IPTV growth predictions. Most bullish is India-based RNCOS that predicts a surge in the Asian-Pacific zone will see IPTV subscribers reach 103 million in 2011. This contrasts with a report by Informa, Telecoms and Media late last year that forecast 38.4 million IPTV subscribers by 2011. At the same time, Research and Markets has predicted the global IPTV market will grow five times over the next four years to 80 million. This is consistent with a report by the MRG group in November that predicted 72.6 million subscribers by 2011.

For more:
Strategy Analytics release
ABI release

Related articles:
Top drivers of European IPTV growth Special Feature Report
Big differences in IPTV forecasts Article
Asian markets expected to drive IPTV Report
Competition and convergence driving IPTV Report

Telcos to change from gorillas to guerrillas

Tom Burton — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:59:50 -0500

IPTV will fundamentally change telco's operational structure and create micro-markets of intense local competition according to a new report by the Yankee Group titled From Gorillas to Guerrillas: IPTV changes Everything. It predicts that by 2011 the IPTV market will have 9.83 million homes, with Verizon accounting for 4.7 million and AT&T for 3.9 million. Yankee estimates a total pay-TV market in the U.S. of 102 million by 2011, giving IPTV a 9.6 percent nationwide penetration.

But Yankee argues because IPTV can determine to which markets it deploys, this average misrepresents the true market impact. The impact is far more dramatic if a more appropriate denominator is used and Yankee predicts an IPTV share of 29 percent in markets where the service is rolled out. None of these will be green field markets and many will be cable's best markets. The prediction is for "bloody street-level market-share fights with IPTV providers." These providers will also be able to exploit the flexibility and power of IP-based video to create a powerful set of differentiated applications around the video stream.

"IPTV will forever alter the video ecosystem by creating not only a new breed of service, but also a new breed of service provider," says the report. "This transition fundamentally changes the market dynamic for all service providers, forcing them to to convert from centralized dominating gorillas to small responsive guerrillas." Telcos will change first followed by the cable MSO's which are predicted to be in a perpetual defensive position.

To get the creative differentiation required, all parties will need to move to an open application paradigm, again radically changing the ponderous development culture all the big providers have inherited.

For more :
Yankee Report: From Gorillas to Guerrillas IPTV changes everything

Related articles:
Apple seeks control of the video home Article
Lounge room wars Article