Asia Pacific drives on-demand TV growth

Based on forecasts for 97 countries, the On-Demand TV Revenue Forecasts report from Digital TV Research expects that on-demand TV revenues from movies and TV programs (and excluding revenues from other sources such as sports and adult and also excluding SVOD packages and online TV & video (OTT)) will reach $6.0 billion in 2018, up by 44% from $4.2 billion in 2012.

On-demand TV generated just 2.3% of the $184 billion total pay TV revenues in 2012. However, the on-demand proportion will grow to 2.9% of the $203 billion total in 2018. Growth in on-demand TV revenues in some mature markets will not be enough to compensate for falling subscription revenues.

Top 10 countries by on-demand TV revenues ($ million)

              2012                2018
------------------  ------------------
USA          1,535  USA          1,785
Italy          466  China          549
China          259  Italy          481
UK             254  Japan          322
France         166  UK             290
Japan          156  Germany        273
Germany        138  India          231
Canada         137  France         186
South Korea     82  Canada         182
India           79  Russia         160

Source: Digital TV Research Ltd

The US accounted for 37% of global on-demand TV revenues in 2012, but this proportion will fall to 30% by 2018 – despite its revenues climbing by 16%.

Simon Murray, report author, said: “The US is undoubtedly the most sophisticated on-demand TV market, with a long-standing consumer acceptance of the concept. Furthermore, the US has the highest rates of cinema attendance per capita in the world by some distance, which reveals a love of movie-watching.”

He continued: “However, on-demand TV is growing fast outside the US. For instance, China will more than double its revenues between 2012 and 2018. Indian revenues will almost triple over the same period.”

North America and Western Europe together accounted for 73% of global on-demand TV revenues in 2012. Despite revenues growing by 20%, these two regions combined will take only 61% of the global total by 2018.

Revenues in Asia Pacific (up by 113%), Eastern Europe (up by 89%) and Latin America (up by 129%) will rocket between 2012 and 2018. On-demand TV revenues in the Asia Pacific region will more than double between 2012 and 2018 to $1,457 million. Asia Pacific’s proportion of on-demand TV revenues will grow from 16% in 2012 to 24% in 2018.

Digital cable on-demand TV revenues are forecast to increase by $1 billion between 2012 and 2018 to reach $2.77 billion. IPTV on-demand TV revenues will nearly double over the same period to $1.00 billion by 2018. Satellite on-demand TV revenues will also rise, but only by 22% over the same period to reach $1.79 billion – or nearly $1 billion lower than digital cable. Most of the digital terrestrial TV on-demand revenues will be confined to Western Europe, principally Italy.