The number of digital TV homes in the Netherlands grew by 4.2% during the third quarter of 2011 to 5.97 million on September 30, 2011, according to Telecompaper’s quarterly Dutch TV report.
The total includes 3.37 million cable TV subscribers who also had an analogue cable TV connection. Digital TV increased its share of the entire TV market to 75%.
Ziggo was the largest digital TV provider, winning some market share, followed by KPN (DTT and IPTV combined), UPC and DTH platform CanalDigitaal.
Cable accounted for almost 57% of digital TV connections in Q3, after winning market share during the quarter. Terrestrial and satellite were second and third, both losing market share.
IPTV and FTTH were able to increase their share of the digital TV market, ending the quarter as the fourth and fifth largest technologies.
Telecompaper expects the number of digital TV connections to grow by 13% over the full year 2011, after 15%t annual growth in 2010. This will lead to a total of around 6.1 million digital TV connections at the end of this year.
According to the market researcher, digital TV growth is driven by the increasing number of operators offering triple-play services, such as Vodafone recently started over FTTH networks.
Another driver is so-called ‘second screen’ TV services, enabling consumers to watch TV via their tablets, PCs or laptops. KPN introduced such a service in September, and both Ziggo and UPC are expected to enhance their current iPhone and iPad apps with similar services.
