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Infonetics Research forecasts that the global pay-TV market will grow to $353 billion by 2015 with satellite video and IPTV fueling most of the growth.
The pay-TV market totaled $125 billion through the first half of the year, according to the market research firm's Pay TV Services and Subscribers report.
DirecTV and Comcast are the global market leaders based on pay-TV service revenues (DirecTV: highest ARPU) and subscribers (Comcast: 22.5 million) through the first half of the year, Infonetics Research said.
But Comcast and its cable TV brethren have been losing video subscribers to the likes of DirecTV and Verizon, making it little surprise that Infonetics Research forecasts growth to come from satellite video and IP television.
"Now cable operators are being challenged not only by attractive pricing and services from IPTV and satellite operators, but by all over-the-top (OTT) video services, like Netflix and Amazon On-Demand, and by connected-TV devices, which are prompting consumers to cut the cord," said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access and video at Infonetics Research. "Net new cable video subscribers continue to decline in North America and EMEA, and the small increases in Asia and Central and Latin America aren't offsetting those declines. While we don't expect OTT to have a significant impact on pay TV subscribers because operators are responding to OTT with their own enhanced delivery offerings, we do expect cable video's share of pay TV revenue to decline as satellite video increases – nearly catching up to cable by 2015 – while IPTV services grow to 15% of the market."
