China DTV subs 23.6m, IPTV subs 1.14m
December 24, 2007
China Netmedia, a consulting arm of the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) has revealed that as of November 31, 2007 the number of cable DTV subscribers in China reached 23.65 million. The figure represents a year-on-year increase of 81.3 per cent and growth of over 200 per cent in the last 4 years. During the same period, IPTV accumulated 1.14 million subscribers, but IPTV growth has dropped from a high of 480 per cent in 2005 to 110 per cent.
By November 2007, 68 cities (including 7 provincial capitals, 39 municipal-level cities, and 22 county-level cities) had completed cable DTV conversion, with the penetration rate of cable DTV reaching 24.33 per cent. The biggest obstacle to DTV conversion is the high level of fragmentation and lack of interoperability between cable DTV operators for each city.