IPTV deployments double for second year in a row, says Broadband Forum

July 15, 2008 - The number of IPTV subscribers worldwide have more than doubled for the second year running in the 12 months to March 2008 and reached almost 15.5mn customers, according to research prepared for the Broadband Forum by market analysis firm Point Topic.

Of these 15.5mn subscribers, Europe has over 8.4mn subscribers according to the research, making it the strongest market in terms of growth and total subscriber numbers. The statistics also show that there were over 370mn broadband subscribers globally at the end of the first quarter of this year, with DSL remaining the dominant access technology, connecting 240mn or 65% of the world's subscribers. Fibre broadband subscriptions have increased by 33% since the beginning of 2007 to reach over 10mn customers, which "may be attributed" to the increased popularity of bandwidth-hungry services such as IPTV. The leading access technology for IPTV currently remains ADSL2+, with 12,049,817 subscribers.

Regional IPTV subscriber growth worldwide, first quarter 2007 and 2008

“IPTV operators around the world have shown that systems are scalable and can handle rapid growth in subscriber numbers,” said John Bosnell, Senior Analyst at Point Topic. “However, developing and agreeing standards will help these operators deliver IPTV more simply and effectively over a variety of access technologies and help to drive higher up take in other markets.”

Western Europe remains the largest regional market for broadband services with over 97mn subscribers, however emerging markets such as Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa are averaging 30% growth and demonstrating the "exceptional growth" of broadband around the world. “This report shows that although DSL remains the key vehicle for delivering broadband associated services, alternative access technologies, such as fibre, are increasing their footprints and their requirements need to be considered in our work,” said George Dobrowski, Chairman and President of the Broadband Forum. “The Broadband Forum recognises this and is working hard to make sure fibre is integrated seamlessly in to existing broadband architectures and management platforms worldwide.”

Snapshot of regional broadband growth to 31 March, 2008