Nearly 600 million connected TV sets by 2017

The number of TV connections to the Internet will reach 596 million by 2017, up from 105 million at end-2010 and the 212 million expected at end-2012. Published by Digital TV Research, these findings are part of the just-released Connected TV Forecasts report, which covers 40 countries.

The US contributed 48 million to the 2010 total (or 45% of the global total), and will grow to 78 million in 2012 (37%) and 147 million by 2017 (only 25% of the global total). China will have 93 million connected TVs by 2017, up from a mere 2 million at end-2010. So Japan will drop from second place in 2010 (13 million) to third in 2017 (43 million).

This global connected TV total translates to 21.4% of global TV sets by 2017, up from only 4.7% at end-2010 and 8.9% by end-2012. The US will have the highest penetration of TV sets by 2017 – at 38.1%, closely followed by Norway (37.7%) and South Korea (37.2%).

Report author Simon Murray said: “There has been something of a backlash against smart TV sets over the last year as critics argue that similar – or even better – offers are available on tablets or even mobile smartphones. Critics complain that connected TV sets provide a clunky experience. Although this is a wake-up call for those involved in the sector, these deficiencies are likely to be addressed reasonably soon as connected TV becomes mainstream. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of online usage via connected TVs is TV-related.”

There are several ways by which a TV set can be connected online. The most popular has been via the fixed games console, which accounted for 57% of the 2010 total.

However, connected TV sets will overtake games consoles in late 2012. Connected TV sets will account for 41% of the 2017 total. There were 31 million installed connected TV sets by end-2010, and this total will rocket to 84 million by end-2012 and onto 243 million by 2017. As a proportion of TV sets, this percentage will climb from 1.4% in 2010 to 3.5% in 2012 and onto 8.7% by 2017.

Connected TV via the pay TV set-top box has plenty of potential as operators strive to retain their subscribers. TiVo has signed deals with several pay TV operators. Furthermore, Liberty Global/UPC launched its Horizon gateway service across several of its European properties in late 2012. So, from humble beginnings, there will be 98 million sets accessing the Internet via the pay TV settop box by end-2017. However, only 3.5% of global TV sets will be connected this way in 2017.

As well as pay TV operators offering connected set-top boxes, some models are available at retail. Examples include Google TV, Apple TV and Roku. Mainly a US phenomenon at present, there have been several international launches in 2012.

The global total of connected TV sets via retail settop boxes will reach 40.2 million in 2017, up from only 3.0 million in 2010 and 13.6 million by end-2012. This form of connection is only expected to have a limited impact (1.4% of global TV sets by 2017) due to the superior offers from the other forms of connections.

Despite being overtaken by connected sets in late 2012, the number of connected games consoles will continue to rise significantly (reaching 138.4 million by 2017, up from 82.2 million at end-2012). The total number of fixed games consoles will increase by 79% between 2010 and 2017 to 276 million. This growth comes due to the anticipated launches of new versions of each console between 2012 and 2014.

Blu-ray players will become important for connected TV expansion, with 76.1 million connections forecast by 2017. As usual, the US will be the pioneer nation, maintaining its market lead with 16.6 million connected TV via blu-ray players by 2017. China will be close behind with 12.7 million connected blu-ray players by 2017, up from 140,000 at end-2010 and 1.6 million at end-2012.