IBC-AMSTERDAM. China’s huge cable market, though numbering some 175 million households, is facing growing threat from OTT services.
Speaking in a session entitled China: Big hurdles, big potential. How the world’s biggest media and technology market is shaping up, Graham Kill, CEO, Irdeto, China, said that there had been a huge build out of cable in the country over the last decade. As a result, around 50% of households had been digitised.
He added, however, that the cable market is highly fragmented and consolidation was needed.
Phil Colby, VP technology, China, Liberty Global, said tht of 60-70 million set-top boxes some 90 million are one-way. At the same time, 95% of broadband connections were via DSL rather than cable.
China has some 400 million TV households and 470 million internet users.
Online video is very popular in the country, with over 63% of internet users now accessing online video services