Report: Triple-Play Subs to Quadruple by 2016

LONDON: More than a quarter of TV households worldwide, representing 387 million homes, are expected to have subscriptions to triple-play services by 2016, says a new report from Digital TV Research.

According to the Triple-Play Forecasts report, penetration will reach 25 percent by 2016, up from only 7.1-percent penetration reported at the end of 2010. The Asia-Pacific subs will represent 58 percent of the total by 2016, up from 35 percent at end-2010. China alone will contribute 147 million additional subscribers, supplying 44 percent of the global triple-play subscriptions by 2016. The U.S. will add another 24 million subscribers, followed by 18 million more in India and a further 13 million in Russia.

Simon Murray, author of the report, commented: "The 2016 3P penetration doesn’t sound too impressive until you realize that this represents 387 million homes, up from 96 million at end-2010."

Triple-play revenues will reach $170 billion by 2016, representing $100 billion more than the 2010 total. The U.S. will account for $39 billion of the additional revenues, with Japan up by $9 billion and China increasing by $8 billion.

Murray added: "Rivalry for pay-TV and broadband subscribers has never been so fierce—and it’s going to get even more competitive. Operators are pushing their bundled packages hard to attract new subscribers and to retain existing ones.

"These operators are not just competing with each other, but they also have to deal with widespread take-up of digital terrestrial TV (with its channel choice often nearly replicating the basic pay offer) and over-the-top (OTT) internet- delivered video. Furthermore, satellite TV providers are pushing newer services such as DVRs, HD and 3D to differentiate themselves from their fixed line counterparts."

He continued: "The effect of all of this competition is reasonably-priced bundles, which increases overall [blended] ARPU for operators but lowers revenues from the component parts: TV, broadband and telephony. So operators will (and have already started to) reduce TV channel choice (sometimes to just what is offered on DTT) and will be more reluctant to pay carriage fees for basic channels. This will impact channels revenue streams. Furthermore, operators are providing faster broadband speeds as standard."