Global IPTV market up to nearly 24 million

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
Broadband Forum logo

  • 3 million new North American broadband subscribers added in first quarter 2009 despite economic downturn
  • Global IPTV market up to nearly 24 million with 9.77% quarterly growth and strong activity across North America

The Broadband Forum today announced the latest broadband and IPTV statistics, which show impressive growth in the face of the global economic downturn. Its report, prepared for the Forum by industry analysts Point Topic, shows that broadband grew by 16.6 million lines globally in the last quarter alone, with more than three million being added across North America – while IPTV continues to expand strongly.

Broadband lines in the world now top 429.2 million and the last quarter shows growth slightly higher than the previous three month period. Twenty countries grew by 10 percent or more in that time. The biggest growth in the top 20 came from India at 13.4 percent, while the other large gainers were Ukraine (15.2 percent), Egypt (10.6 percent) and Mexico (10.3 percent). Of the total figure, North America grew 3.87 percent to more than 93.5 million.

Top 10 broadband countries:

Country            2008Q1       2009Q1
-------       -----------  -----------
China          71,034,820   88,088,000
USA            72,581,920   83,968,547
Japan          28,836,100   30,631,900
Germany        21,077,450   24,144,350
France         16,186,996   18,009,500
UK             16,318,300   17,661,100
South Korea    14,970,775   15,709,771
Italy          11,300,077   12,447,533
Brazil          7,949,000   10,065,200
Canada          8,859,868    9,533,500
              -----------  -----------
  TOTAL       269,115,306  310,259,401

Source: Data provided for the Broadband Forum by Point Topic

North America was again a major factor in the continued IPTV success story, with impressive growth of more than 15 percent over the last quarter and a huge 94.2 percent year-on-year improvement. There are now nearly 4.5 million lines of IPTV across North America.

IPTV subscriptions per region:

                            2008Q1      2008Q4      2009Q1  Quarterly   Yearly
Region                       Total       Total       Total     Growth   Growth
------                   ---------  ----------  ----------  ---------  -------
Latin America               11,183      21,495      23,467      9.17%  109.85%
Eastern Europe             553,394     955,234   1,158,673     21.30%  109.38%
North America            2,283,601   3,830,507   4,435,102     15.78%   94.22%
South and East Asia      2,086,000   3,618,000   3,990,000     10.28%   91.28%
Western Europe           7,799,449  10,367,586  11,375,200      9.72%   45.85%
Asia-Pacific             2,619,035   3,058,182   3,005,015     -1.74%   14.74%
Middle East and Africa      10,000      10,000      10,000      0.00%    0.00%

Source: Data provided for the Broadband Forum by Point Topic

In terms of technology, DSL continues to be the most popular broadband access technology, although fiber grew by more than three million lines to reflect a 12.4 percent share of the market, while wireless showed a healthy proportionate increase of over one million lines to a total of 5.58 million.

Market shares by Technology for Q1 2009:

DSL        64.621%
Cable      20.674%
Fibre      12.440%
Wireless    1.301%
Other       0.963%

Source: Data provided for the Broadband Forum by Point Topic

“This report shows that despite the economic situation the world is facing, the demand for both broadband and IPTV continues at pace as people everywhere look to improve the quality and speed of their communications,” said George Dobrowski, Chairman and President of the Broadband Forum.

“The Forum continues to drive broadband innovation, and with the release of BroadbandSuite 3.0, which provides new IPTV management and fiber integration tools, we continue to ensure that the industry has all the tools and specifications it needs to optimize networks and to capture the full potential of broadband worldwide. Our capability is enhanced by the recent union with the IP/MPLS Forum, which gives us a much greater end-to-end capability to serve the industry.”

More: Point Topic GBS database