Advanced Television

European IPTV subs to double by 2015

May 31, 2010

The number of IPTV subscribers in Europe is set to increase by 92 per cent within the next five years from 15.4 million in 2009 to 29.6 million in 2015, boosted by widespread deployment of next-generation access networks, according to a report from research firm Analysys Mason.

The report adds that having taken the best part of the previous decade to accumulate a 12 per cent share of the region’s pay-TV market, IPTV operators are now set to gain a 19 per cent share by 2015, making IPTV the fastest-growing pay-TV platform in Europe.

Subscriptions to satellite TV services are expected to grow in the region, boosted primarily by recent service launches in Central and Eastern Europe, however Analysys Mason predicts that their share of pay-TV subscriptions will decline by 1 percentage point to 29 per cent in 2015.

Cable platforms will continue to have the largest number of subscriptions overall, but the research firm expects their share of subscribers to decrease from 51 per cent to 41 per cent by 2015, as analogue subscribers defect to rival digital platforms, including free-to-air DTT services.

Analysys Mason forecasts strong growth for pay-DTT services over the next five years. An 84 per cent increase in the number of pay-DTT subscriptions in Europe to 17.2 million by 2015 is predicted to lift the platform’s share of pay-TV subscriptions from 7 per cent in 2009 to 11 per cent in 2015.

Looking at the overall pay-TV market, the report predicts that the number of pay-TV households in Europe (excluding Russia and CIS markets) will increase from 125.5 million at the end of 2009 to 145 million by the end of 2015, representing a “modest” compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.1 per cent. As a result, household pay-TV penetration will rise from 58.5 per cent to 66 per cent during the forecast period.

The research firm expects spending on pay-TV services to grow at a CAGR of 4.9 per cent during the next five years, from E27.2 billion in 2009 to E38 billion in 2015, driven by the ongoing migration to digital TV services and the rising consumption of on-demand content.

Categories: Articles, IPTV, OTT