‘Massive’ Growth Forecast for IPTV

LONDON: The number of homes subscribing to an IPTV service will reach 155 million by the end of 2016, according to a report from Digital TV Research, up from 35 million at the end of last year, driven in large part by growth in the Asia Pacific.

The Asia Pacific will supply 85 million of the 120 million additional subscribers, the IPTV Forecasts report says. China alone will have 70 million IPTV subs by end 2016.

Another key finding in the research, penned by Simon Murray, is that by 2016, 83 percent of IPTV subs will be on a triple-play bundle, while 10 percent will be paying for just TV and broadband and only 7 percent will be taking solely the TV service.

While the report does predict strong growth rates, IPTV will remain a small portion of the global multichannel market, taking a 10.5-percent share by end-2016, up from 2.6 percent of TV homes at the end of 2012. The level of revenues generated will rise to $17 billion in 2016, up from $6 billion last year.