Advanced Television

DTV set to reach 274m households by 2012

August 22, 2008

“DTV will grow an average of 12 per cent year-on-year, with particularly strong adoption in the near term as broadcasters terminate analogue terrestrial television,” says Chris Khouri, analyst for media and broadcasting at Datamonitor. “In 2007 there were 158 million households using digital television services in Western Europe and the US. By 2012, Datamonitor expects there to be an estimated 274 million digital TV households in these regions.”

The report covers uptake of DTV in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

At the end of 2007, 54 per cent of homes in Europe and the US had some form of DTV service. This will grow to 88 per cent by the end of 2012 primarily due to the significant increase in digital terrestrial television (DTT) households.

DTT households in Europe and the US will increase from 26 million in 2007 to 55 million by 2012, illustrating an average yearly growth rate of 16 per cent. As a whole, however, Datamonitor expects there to be a significant migration away from free–to-air services in the medium-to-long term, as bundled offerings (triple play, quad play etc.), enhanced features and premium content grow in importance to consumers.

Over the next three years, all DTV platforms will show strong growth as consumers transition to digital services. The two fastest growing platforms in Europe and the US will be digital cable and DTT. Datamonitor expects they will achieve net household increases of 50 million and 30 million, respectively. Concerning other platforms, IPTV services will show the strongest average yearly growth at around 28 per cent, reaching almost 23 million households by 2012. Despite satellite services illustrating very moderate growth of 5.5 per cent, there will be a 20 million increase in subscribers by 2012, reaching around 86 million households

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, IPTV