On a global scale, cable is predicted to reach around 573 million households by 2015, but it will experience an annual growth of around 3% during that period. An upcoming rival, though, is Internet TV (or IPTV), that will experience a ‘compound annual growth rate’ (CAGR) of a staggering 24%, although this industry will still be over five times smaller than Digital, with a projected 2015 figure of around 109 million households reached. Satellite TV, meanwhile will find themselves in the middle of this spectrum, with a healthy CAGR of 10%, towards a worldwide total of 419 million.

Jonathan Doran, who is an official Ovum analyst, and the author of the report, said of these findings: “DTT growth will be fueled primarily by the further allocation of spectrum for free-to-air services and the implementation of analog switchover deadlines, while telcos will continue to aggressively market their IPTV offerings as they play catch-up with the longer-established cable and satellite pay-TV platforms. Satellite pay-TV will remain stable in the face of competition from emerging low-cost services as it continues to attract a core of higher-value subscribers than cable.”

The Asia-Pacific region is predicted to be a key area of growth for IPTV, with a suggested increase from 15.6 million to 43.2 million households during the five-year period, although cable will still be miles ahead on 388 million in the densely-populated region.

Australia will actually see digital as the dominant force with almost 6 million households by 2015, while rivals will be less fortunate in the country, with satellite on a projected 823,000, and cable at nearly 2.2 million (up from just over 2 million in 2010). IPTV in Australia, meanwhile, will possible struggle further, as their market projection is for only 342,000, despite a fairly rapid increase from current statistics.

China will represent the biggest increase for cable in the Far East, while Japan and South Korea will see very slight increments.

Ovum is expecting an overall, ‘worldwide’ pay-TV revenue growth of almost 40% by 2015, but will any of the challengers ever catch up to cable, despite recent figures?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 at 8:21 am and is filed under Cable TV, Internet TV news, IPTV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.