New numbers from IMS Research suggest an estimated 45 million households around the world were receiving HD via various services and technologies by the end of 2007. That’s not a dramatic count, considering that the United States alone has more than 110 million TV homes, with still about two-thirds of them not yet HD, per se.
But IMS projects about 255 million HHs worldwide will be watching HD via an array of technologies by the end of 2013. This number includes video households viewing only Blu-ray Disc and other pre-recorded, non-broadcast fare. The Blu-ray market itself is projected to grow markedly during the next five years (IMS said especially if Blu-ray drives in new computers continue to become more common), topping out at $46 billion in sales revenues in 2013.
IMS said global HD adoption necessitated by analog-to-digital conversion is being somewhat skewed by the fact that nearly two-thirds of all cable dwellings worldwide are located in the Asia Pacific region, where digital conversion will remain slow in some areas for several years.
