Infonetics: IPTV Upstarts Shaking Up Pay-TV Landscape

CAMPBELL: New IPTV entrants are winning over subscribers from established pay-TV providers, particularly in Brazil and Russia, says Infonetics Research.

Infonetics Research released excerpts from its new Pay TV Subscriber Database, which tracks the digital and analogue cable pay-TV, satellite pay-TV and telco IPTV subscribers of more than 140 providers around the world.

The research points to Russia’s Rostelecom, Brazil’s GVT and Dutch provider KPN as notable new players that are posing a challenge to incumbents. In one year, KPN saw a jump of 77 percent in IPTV subscribers. GVT saw a 62-percent increase, and Rostelecom a 42-percent increase. Deutsche Telekom’s Eastern European divisions are also gaining IPTV subscribers at a healthy rate, according to Infonetics.

China Telecom is the world leader in telco IPTV subscribers, with 20.5 million subs as of the fourth quarter of 2012. Globally, the top 5 cable pay-TV providers by subscribers are Comcast, Jiangsu Cable TV, Guangdong Cable TV, Shandong Cable TV and Sichuan Cable TV. DirecTV in the U.S. is number one in satellite pay-TV subscribers, followed by DISH Network, British Sky Broadcasting and DirecTV Latin America; the operators together accounted for 55 million subscribers in Q4 2012.

“We continue to see strong growth among telco IPTV upstarts, like Rostelecom in Russia, GVT in Brazil, KPN in the Netherlands and providers in Eastern Europe where competition for new pay-TV subscribers is particularly fierce," said Jeff Heynen, principal analyst for broadband access and pay TV at Infonetics Research. “Our Pay TV Database gets the point across that telcos in both emerging and mature markets can do well, even when the market is saturated with cable and satellite providers.”