More than a quarter of the world’s TV households will be subscribing to triple play services by 2016, according to new data released by Digital TV Research.
Simon Murray, who authored the 73-country Triple Play Forecasts report, said the 2016 penetration did not sound too impressive until it was put into context of growth from 96 million in 2010 to 387 million six years later. “Rivalry for pay-TV and broadband subscribers has never been so fierce – and it’s going to get even more competitive. Operators are pushing their bundled packages hard to attract new subscribers and to retain existing ones.”
Rapid expansion means that triple play subs in the Asia Pacific region will represent 58% of the total by 2016, up from 35% in 2010. Of the 291 million additional subscribers, 147 million will be in China alone, followed by an additional 24 million in the United States, 18 million more in India and 13 million extra in Russia. China will supply 44% of global triple play subs by 2016.
Furthermore, there will be 80 million dual-play subscribers by 2016, up from 32 million at end-2010. Global dual-play penetration will reach 5.4% by end-2016, up from 2.3% at end-2010. China (30 million subs) will be the largest 2P country in 2016, followed by the US (13 million) and India (12 million). These three countries will represent 69% of global 2P subs.
“The effect of all of this competition is reasonably-priced bundles, which increases overall [blended] ARPU for operators but lowers revenues from the component parts: TV, broadband and telephony,” said Murray. “So operators will (and have already started to) reduce TV channel choice (sometimes to just what is offered on DTT) and will be more reluctant to pay carriage fees for basic channels. This will impact channels revenue streams. Furthermore, operators are providing faster broadband speeds as standard.”
Triple-play penetration will be highest in North America, reaching 46% by 2016, though growth will flatten from 2014. Triple play penetration will exceed 50% of TV households in nine countries by 2016, led by Belgium (67%) and Hong Kong (60%). Singapore (21%) will be the dual-play leader.
