Good growth for multi-screen services
August 10, 2011
MRG reports that the global IPTV market will grow to $49 billion in service revenues and 113 million subscribers in 2015 as multi-screen video usage drives wireless services to new highs. Systems revenue for the seven key CapEx IPTV products analysed will grow to $4.8 billion in 2015, with STBs (set-top boxes) representing about 60 per cent.
As consumers add Wi-Fi for using smart devices within their homes, market growth continues largely due to trends toward mobile lifestyle habits of 18-55-year-olds.
Based on semi-annual updates of major global Operators and their differentiating services and updated subscriber counts, Europe remains ahead of Asia in 2015 in IPTV subscribers, partially due to continued regulatory confusion in Asia. By 2015 worldwide, at least 25 IPTV Operators will have over 1 million subscribers, with 9 having over 3 million, the US having 2 Operators with over 7.5 million each and Europe having 12 IPTV Operators with over 1 million each. In a country-by-country analysis, Eastern Europe shows noteworthy resilience and innovation as illustrated by Romania’s 141 per cent subscriber growth over one year ago.
Smart TVs are still not impacting overall STB penetration, due to difficulty of TV makers in getting enough content-rights and due to the slow replacement cycle of TVs in most parts of the world (making Smart TVs obsolete for new services). Generally IPTV Operators are using integrated hybrid services (merging Satellite, DTT [Digital Terrestrial], IPTV and OTT [Streaming Video]) both defensively and offensively, often using a combination of these to supplement their IPTV services in an integrated EPG. By offering integrated hybrid services, IPTV Operators are able to offer additional integrated services not available on Smart TVs. Vodafone Germany, for example, is offering IPTV and Satellite, while using Broadband to offer VoD. In Australia, Telstra is using DTT for linear TV and the customers‚ Broadband service to deliver (streaming) movies from its BigPond service.