IPTV subscribers worldwide have more than doubled for the second year, according to the latest statistics from the Broadband Forum.
Released at this year's Broadband World Forum Asia in Hong Kong, the statistics also revealed that as of the end of the first quarter this year, about 15.5 million households subscribe to IPTV service, up from about 7.2 million at the end of Q1 2007. Of the total, more than 8.4 million live in Europe, and 2.2 million live in North America.
The findings, part of research conducted for the Broadband Forum by Point Topic, also show the number of broadband subscribers worldwide exceeds 370 million. DSL remains the most dominant access technology with 65 percent of the world's subscribers. However, fiber subscriptions have risen 33 percent since the beginning of 2007, with more than 10 million people connected to a fiber network.
The increase in fiber subscriptions may result from the increased popularity of bandwidth hungry services such as IPTV, the Broadband Forum said. However, the leading technology delivering IPTV today is ADSL2plus, with 12,049,817 subscribers, according to the statistics.
Point Topic’s data revealed IPTV subscriber growth in all regions with the exception of the Middle East and Africa.
Regional IPTV subscriber growth
RegionQ1 2007Q1 2008 Europe 3,875,266 8,425,370 Asia-Pacific 1,129,355 2,619,035 North America 850,601 2,258,601 South and East Asia 1,353,000 2,086,000 Latin America 2300 11,183 Middle East and Africa 10,000 10,000 TOTAL 7,220,522 15,410,189
Source: Data provided for the Broadband Forum by Point Topic.
For more information, visit www.broadband-forum.org and www.point-topic.com.
