The Broadband Forum released a report that said worldwide IPTV subscribers have more than doubled for the second-straight year, with an increase of 53.1 percent in the 12 months leading up to March.
According to the report by Point Topic, nearly 15.5 million people are subscribed to an IPTV service. Europe leads the way with more than 8.4 million subscribers and is also the strongest market in terms of growth.
“IPTV operators around the world have shown that systems are scalable and can handle rapid growth in subscriber numbers,” said Point Topic Senior Analyst John Bosnell. “However, developing and agreeing standards will help these operators deliver IPTV more simply and effectively over a variety of access technologies and help to drive higher uptake in other markets.”
Regional IPTV subscriber growth worldwide, for the first quarters in 2007 and 2008, were:
|
Region |
Q1 2007 |
Q1 2008 |
|
Europe |
3,875,266 |
8,425,370 |
|
Asia-Pacific |
1,129,355 |
2,619,035 |
|
North America |
850,601 |
2,258,601 |
|
South and East Asia |
1,353,000 |
2,086,000 |
|
Latin America |
2,300 |
11,183 |
|
Middle East and Africa |
10,000 |
10,000 |
|
TOTAL |
7,220,522 |
15,410,189 |
The report said that DSL continues to be the most popular access technology, with close to 240 million of the world’s subscribers, while cable subscription rates “have slowed to 18 percent growth rate.” Fiber optic subscribers have increased 33 percent in the past year.
“This report shows that although DSL remains the key vehicle for delivering broadband-associated services, alternative access technologies, such as fiber, are increasing their footprints, and their requirements need to be considered in our work,” said George Dobrowski, chairman and president of the Broadband Forum, which was formerly known as the DSL Forum. “The Broadband Forum recognizes this and is working hard to make sure fiber is integrated seamlessly into existing broadband architectures and management platforms worldwide.”
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