The number of IPTV subscribers in the United States grew by 152 percent in 2008, according to new figures from Informa Telecoms & Media. In fact, Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. are respectively the No. 2 and No. 3 largest providers of IPTV worldwide. The two U.S. RBOCs combined account for 3.06 million subscribers.
The total number of IPTV subscribers worldwide passed the 20-million subscriber mark at the end of 2008, Informa noted, taking into account both disclosed and estimated figures.
Released on the opening day of the IPTV World Forum in London, the new research indicates that the 90 IPTV networks that released their subscriber figures to Informa account for 19.98 million users, while estimates for another 20 networks take the total to 20.12 million. The study added that IPTV is now active in nearly 60 countries.
Those numbers point to a market that has failed to really take off, the firm said, though the U.S. is a bright spot.
“It is a fair observation that IPTV has not made the sort of inroads into broadband homes which operators might have expected, but it is wrong to declare that the concept is doomed to fail," said Julian Herbert, principal analyst at Informa.
“In markets where the bandwidth is available and the marketing and pricing are attractive, IPTV is attracting big volumes of new customers and helping operators to improve retention rates and increase fixed line ARPU,” Herbert said. “Look at operators like AT&T – over 800,000 net adds in 2008 – or Free and France Telecom in France, PWCC in Hong Kong or Portugal Telecom: All are growing their market shares strongly in competitive TV markets.”
French competitive carrier Free has the most subscribers worldwide, with 5.93 million signed up.
