China’s IPTV Market Developing Slowly but Surely

December 20, 2006 - China’s IPTV market will go through a gradual but solid increase from 2006 to 2010, reports In-Stat.

According to In-Stat, although the industry environment for IPTV has improved, the outlook is still not entirely positive. Two more IPTV licenses have been issued in China and license holders have achieved some progress with more local telcos. However, the government agency SARFT maintains tight control over content supervision and is using government policies to level the competition between IPTV and digital cable TV.

“China’s IPTV ecosystem is still shaping itself,” says Rebecca Tan, In-Stat analyst. “The ecosystem participants, centralized around telcos, are trying to find an effective model for cooperation. Telcos currently have to rely on content providers for programming while trying to gain content licenses of their own, while content providers, represented by Shanghai Media Group, are managing to control end-users through IPTV.”

Recent research by In-Stat has allowed them to project that China’s IPTV subscriber base will reach 6.3 million by 2010, up from only 240,000 in 2005. Additionally, annual subscription revenue will grow rapidly to $888 million by 2010. Furthermore, telcos have conducted several trials in different areas around China and begun the progress of IPTV commercialization in both Shanghai and Haerbin in the Heilongjiang Province.

For more information, please visit: www.in-stat.com