IPTV, HD Growing Strong as Global Pay-TV Market Reaches 864 Million Subscriptions

It wasn’t a banner year for growth spikes when it came to global pay-TV subscriptions in 2012, but the market continued to grow: it added nearly 47 million subscribers in 2012 to reach a total of 864 million subscribers.

 ABI Research revealed the worldwide IPTV (News - Alert) subscriber base has been increasingly rapidly over the past few years.

“The growth in satellite, cable and IPTV markets was strong, although digital terrestrial TV growth was flat in 2012,” said Jake Saunders, vice president and practice director of core forecasting. “ABI Research (News - Alert) expects that the pay-TV market will continue to grow in 2013 to reach 907 million subscribers.”

Meanwhile, worldwide HD service adoption is expected to grow. At present, 33 percent of worldwide pay-TV subscribers are using HDTV services. HDTV penetration is the highest in North America followed by Western Europe; accounting for 84 percent and 76 percent of total pay-TV subscriptions respectively. As many of the countries in different regions are trying to switch over to digital transmission, the number of HD channels and packages offered by the operators increase.

“Worldwide HD service adoption is expected to grow. ABI Research forecasts that 38 percent of global pay-TV subscribers will be subscribing to HDTV services in 2013,” noted Khin Sandi Lynn, research analyst.

The IPTV segment is one notable bright spot in the market: the IPTV subscriber base shows no sign of abating. In 2013, the worldwide IPTV subscriber base is expected to add more than nine million subscribers to reach 79.3 million. More than half of the net addition will be from Asia-Pacific; China alone is expected to add more than three million subscribers, ABI said.

The cable TV market, meanwhile, will remain strong, especially due to the growth in Asia-Pacific markets such as China and India. Cable TV will maintain the largest market share of the overall pay-TV market in 2013.

“However, rapidly growing IPTV will cause cable’s market share to decline to 65.4 percent in 2013 from 66.2 percent in 2012,” ABI noted.