New data from regulator Ofcom has shown the pre-Christmas quarter to be the strongest ever for DTT sales. In the three months to the end of December 2007 four million units were sold. Combined with 280,000 cable and satellite households, this translates into 524,400 net household conversions to digital TV.
Integrated digital TV (IDTV) sets contributed 2.3 million units – up 132% on Q4 2006 – demonstrating the increased availability of such sets in the UK market.
The percentage of UK households receiving digital television services now stands at 86.7%, an increase of 1.6 percentage points on Q3 2007. Some 22.2 million households now have digital TV available on their main set.
The figures also reveal an additional one million households receiving free-to-air satellite transmissions over the 8.3 million subscribing to Sky’s pay-TV packages.
Cable’s fastest growth rate for seven years, and the inevitable decline in analogue reception, saw the platform become the third largest mode of reception.
