Italy: 600,000 IPTV users
June 12, 2009
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
The “New Media: Challenges and Opportunities of Development for the Italian Market” study from Ernst & Young has revealed that IPTV penetration remains low, with only 600.000 users in Italy, compared to the estimated 5 million for DTH platform Sky Italian and DTT pay-TV operator Mediaset Premium.
According to Ernst & Young, the low level of IPTV penetration is linked to poor perception of the advantages and differentiated characteristics compared to more traditional media. The absence of a sufficient number of subscribers to the service also causes lower profitability and thus makes difficult the supply of premium content in an increasingly competitive market.
On the other hand, the number of Web TV services increased by 33% compared to 2007, with 364 operators managing 633 Web channels. The auditing firm expects a continuous growth of Web TV and the quality of content supplied, driven by the increase of the average time spent in front of the computer and the large potential audience.
Although the mobile internet market in Italy grew by 14% last year, it has a marginal impact on the fruition of video content. In fact, the penetration of mobile video consumers is only 4 per cent of total mobile users, with a very limited number of accesses (only 10 a month).