Global IPTV subscriptions exceed 20 million

Informa Telecoms & Media announces the final results of its latest research into IPTV subscription numbers. IPTV passes 20 million

According to research completed ahead of the IPTV World Forum, which opens at Olympia, London on Wednesday, Informa Telecoms & Media announces that global IPTV subscriptions reached the 20 million mark at the end of 2008. The 90 networks which have disclosed numbers to Informa Telecoms & Media account for 19.98 million subscriptions, and estimates for a further 20 networks take the total to 20.12 million. IPTV is now active in nearly 60 countries.

Details of the regional breakdown of the global IPTV subscription numbers along with a summary of the global broadband numbers can be found here

Speaking ahead of this week’s IPTV World Forum, Julian Herbert, Principal Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media said, “It is a fair observation that IPTV has not made the sort of inroads into broadband homes which operators might have expected, but it is wrong to declare that the concept is doomed to fail. In markets where the bandwidth is available and the marketing and pricing are attractive, IPTV is attracting big volumes of new customers and helping operators to improve retention rates and increase fixed line ARPU. Look at operators like AT&T – over 800,000 net adds in 2008 – or Free and France Telecom in France, PWCC in Hong Kong or Portugal Telecom: all are growing their market shares strongly in competitive TV markets”.

The research, based on a continuous programme of research covering 730 fixed broadband (xDSL, cable broadband, FTTx, LAN, satellite and fixed wireless) operators in 160 countries and over 100 IPTV operators in 60 countries, will be presented in an opening address at the IPTV World Forum at Olympia, London, this week.

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