Global digital TV penetration crosses halfway mark

About 370 million digital homes were added around the world between end-2007 and end-2011 – or an average of 93 million more digital homes each year, according to a new report from Digital TV Research. The Digital TV World Databook estimated that this took the digital TV household total for the 80 countries covered in the report to 675 million.

Simon Murray, author of the report, said: “Half the world’s TV households now receive digital signals. Digital TV penetration climbed from 23.5% at end-2007 to 48.5% by end-2011.”

He added: “However, there were still 714 million analog TV households (mostly terrestrial and cable, with a few analog DTH ones) by end-2011. This total was down from 989 million at end-2007.”

There were still 442 million analog terrestrial homes (down by 56 million year-on-year), 270 million analog cable ones (down by 17.5 million) and 2 million analog DTH at end-2011.

However, digital cable was in 235 million homes (up by 38 million on end-2010), followed by 154 million pay digital DTH (up by 15 million) and 109 million free-to-air digital DTH. Pay IPTV brought in another 51 million households (up by 16 million). Meanwhile, FTA [free-to-air] DTT homes reached 117 million (up by 20 million), with pay DTT generating a further 9.5 million.

Of the digital homes added between 2007 and 2011, 75 million came from primary DTT [homes taking DTT but not subscribing to cable, DTH or IPTV]. Digital cable contributed a further 146 million, pay DTH 63 million, with pay IPTV providing an additional 43 million.

Analog terrestrial was still the most popular platform at end-2011, accounting for 31.8% of the world’s TV households, with analog cable second at 19.5%. Digital cable was the most popular digital platform, securing 16.9% of TV households. Pay digital DTH was next at 11.1%, followed by FTA digital DTH with 7.8%. About 8.4% of homes were primary FTA DTT, with 0.7% pay DTT. Pay IPTV penetration reached 3.7% at end-2011, up from only 0.6% at end-2007.

Of the 370 million digital TV households added between 2007 and 2011, 194 million were in the Asia Pacific region, bringing its total to 274 million. China became the largest digital TV household nation in 2010, rising to 149 million digital TV homes (22% of the world’s total) by end-2011.

Global digital TV penetration reached 49% by end-2011, up from only 24% at end-2007. Regional penetration at end-2011 varied from 89% in North America to 33% in Latin America. Only Spain and Finland were completely digital by end-2011.

Top 10 digital countries at end-2011

Households (000)   Penetration (%)
----------------   ---------------
China    148,830   Finland     100
USA      105,006   Spain       100
India     42,190   Bahrain      99
Japan     35,714   France       98
Germany   26,641   Israel       98
France    26,199   Croatia      97
UK        24,935   Czech Rep.   96
Brazil    19,471   Kuwait       96
Spain     16,860   Cyprus       96
Russia    16,202   Tunisia      96

Source: Digital TV Research Ltd

Pay TV penetration (analog and digital combined) reached 52% of the world’s TV households by end-2011, up from 41% at end-2007. Pay TV revenues reached US$176 billion in 2011, up by 30% from US$135 billion in 2007. Cable (analog and digital combined) generated the highest revenues by platform, with US$89 billion in 2011. However, cable revenues are flattening and DTH will overtake cable soon. IPTV revenues reached US$10 billion in 2011, up from US$1.5 billion in 2007. North America generates just over half the world’s total pay TV revenues.