New MRG report raises forecast for global IPTV subscribers by 2011

November 15, 2007 – Research firm MRG has released its new bi-annual IPTV Forecast report, increasing its estimate of the number of IPTV subscribers worldwide by 2011 to 72.6mn.

This indicates a compounded annual growth rate of around 40%, going on estimates of 13.5mn IPTV subscribers worldwide in 2007.  The report finds that Europe still leads the global IPTV market, while in Asia and the rest of the world emerging market such as China, Eastern Europe, Korea and Russia are taking “larger steps” to growth.  North America sees “steady growth” by independent telcos and accelerated growth by the large telcos.

“We’ve substantially increased our global subscriber forecast for 2011, from 63.6mn in the April 2007 forecast to 72.6mn now, in large part because we’re considerably more optimistic about the probability for market success in China, India and Korea,” said Len Feldman, Director of IPTV Analysis for MRG.  “We slightly decreased our subscriber forecast for 2007, from 14.3mn to 13.5mn, but paradoxically, our forecast for total system revenues went up, from $2.1bn to $2.5bn.

“Europe will remain the number one IPTV market in terms of subscriber count through 2011, but Asia is catching up quickly and will most likely surpass Europe in 2012-2013.  In North America, Verizon and AT&T are growing considerably faster than we previously forecasted, and we expect Verizon to be the world’s largest IPTV service provider in 2011.”

MRG reports that in terms of technology, MPEG-4/AVC is “consistently replacing” MPEG-2 in new installations, as the latter reportedly ceases to be sold even in cost-sensitive markets like China or Eastern Europe.  While DSL remains as the dominant last-mile technology, Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) is “beginning to show more traction in both new and established neighbourhoods.