IPTV continues to gain market share, passing 75 million subscriber mark; with China, France and US accounting for 58% of the global user base.
Latest broadband and IPTV figures published by the Broadband Forum show a significant surge in superfast broadband, with fibre, particularly FTTx/VDSL2 hybrid deployments, playing a key role in driving this 8.6% annual growth. The figures, prepared by Point Topic, also reveal that 50 million new users around the globe have subscribed to broadband in the past year alone, bringing the global total to 643,770,042.
“These are promising figures as they highlight the ongoing strength of the broadband market,” commented Robin Mersh, CEO of the Broadband Forum. “We are increasingly witnessing a shift in technology, particularly to fiber, as consumer habits evolve and the demand for higher bandwidths increases.”
The figures show that FTTx is gaining ground on other technologies, including traditional DSL, which continues to be the most dominant technology in the market. FTTx (including VDSL and VDSL2) showed the largest annual growth with over 27% overall, compared to 7.2% for cable modems and 3.6% for DSL. Looking at the current market share, fiber technologies, which sit at 21%, are beginning to overtake cable modem’s 19%.
Over 75 million users are now subscribing to IPTV. It grew in the final 2012 quarter, adding 3.6 million customers at a percentage growth of 4.97%, down slightly from the 5.04% in the previous quarter. Overall, 11.8% of all broadband subscribers now take an IPTV service, up from 10.4% year-end 2011.
IPTV continues to be a critical driver for superfast broadband deployments. While China, France and the US continue to hold the top three spots in IPTV, we are seeing strong percentage growth in the emerging markets of Korea (32%), Russia (86%) and the Netherlands (45%).
“Our task at the Broadband Forum is to provide globally applicable specifications and tools to ensure that service providers and vendors achieve standards based deployments. The Broadband Forum Certification Program continues to bolster the growth of superfast broadband, encouraging interoperability, innovation and faster rollouts,” concluded Mersh.
