CABLE CONGRESS 2013 – LONDON. Although the number of cable homes in Europe is falling, there are 13 new service contracts for every lost customer.
In a wide presentation on the European cable industry and where it is going, Guy Bisson, research director, television, IHS Screen Digest, said that the number of digital cable subscribers in the EU27 countries stood at 30.5 million in 2012, or 9.2% more than a year earlier.
Just as importantly 2012 was a milestone for the cable industry, with the number of digital subscribers exceeding analogue ones for the first time.
Cable ARPU amounted to €25.97 (+4.3%), with the number of RGUs being 126 million.
Significantly, although there were 1.4 million fewer cable homes than five years earlier, there were also 17.7 million more RGUs.
Revenue growth in cable is now outstripping that for satellite operators and telecom growth is accelerating, with telecoms and IP infrastructure being increasingly important to the way TV is delivered.
Indeed, 10 cable markets generated 50% or more of their revenues from telecoms in 2012. Looking at the performance of the market in the period 2007-12, Bisson said that there was particularly strong growth in Eastern Europe, Germany and Benelux, while projecting to 2012-17 Germany would still grow, Eastern Europe accelerate and the Nordic territories and Benelux show growth potential.
Commenting on OTT services such as Netflix and LoveFilm, Bisson said that although they already had more users than comparable Sky services in the UK, when bundling was taken into account Sky Go was very much in the lead.
Cable, too, can benefit from bundling. Beyond quad play, Bisson predicted that WiFi would become a ‘quint play’ and the cloud and CDNs take cable into the next level.
