Worldwide subscriptions to IPTV platforms are on track to reach 19.6 million subscribers in 2008, a 64 percent increase, according to analysts at Gartner.Revenue from worldwide IPTV is forecast to reach $4.5 billion up 93.5 percent from a year earlier, with Western Europe boasting the largest number of IPTV subscribers and North America the largest market for IPTV revenue.It forecast that 1.1 percent of households worldwide would be using IPTV in 2008, and expects that to rise to 2.8 percent by 2012."The biggest change since 2007 is the rapid advent of new entrants making inroads in consumer video consumption and placing greater demands on IPTV operators to innovate," said Gartner research director Elroy Jopling. Gartner cited the new competitors as portals such as YouTube and Joost, social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook and broadcasters launching new offerings such as the BBC’s iPlayer catch-up service and Hulu owned by NBC and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

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