In February, a forecast from eMarketer predicted that 42.8 million Britons will go online in 2012, accounting for about 70% of the population.
The UK
Internet Users and Usage report said that although the UK is a mature broadband market, penetration is still increasing steadily, with survey data suggesting that 90% of at-home users will enjoy high speed connections in 2008 (see
70% Of UK Will Go Online In 2012).
Watching video now takes up a lot of our time online, with comScore revealing that US internet users watched more than 10 billion videos online during December, representing the single heaviest month for online video consumption since comScore initiated its tracking service (see US Users Watched Over 10bn Videos Online In December).
Top-ranked video property Google Sites saw substantial growth and extended its video market share gains, now accounting for nearly one out of every three videos viewed online.
In a separate report, Solutions Research Group found that nearly 80 million Americans (43% of the online population) have watched one of their favourite TV shows on the internet, up from 25% a year previously.
A full 20% of the American online population said that they watch TV on the web on a weekly basis, ahead of the 14% who say that they use cable video-on-demand (VoD) offerings (see 20% Of Americans Watch TV Online On Weekly Basis).
Leichtman Research Group also published figures on online video viewing, with 31% of US adults online at home reporting that they view online video at least weekly (see Ofcom Plans New Public Service Channel To Rival BBC).
Among all individuals ages 18-34, 42% reported that they watch video online at home at least weekly – up from 28% year on year.
Meanwhile, the market research company, RNCOS, found that although the global IPTV market is currently dominated by Europe, it is expected that Asia will emerge as a stronger competitor in coming years.
‘Global IPTV: Market Analysis and Forecast to 2011’ said that the number of broadband subscribers in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 91% during 2006-2011 (see Asia To Emerge As IPTV Competitor To Europe).
Moving on to digital TV, Strategy Analytics said that worldwide sales of digital TV set-top boxes broke through the 100 million barrier for the first time in 2007 (see Ofcom Plans New Public Service Channel To Rival BBC).
The report, Digital TV Set-Top Boxes: Global Market Forecast, found that sales reached 102.4 million units last year, an annual increase of 12%.
However, it was not all good new on the digital TV front, with the Nielsen Company claiming that over 13 million analogue-only television households in the US are unprepared for switchover, and another six million have at least one set that will not work after the analogue signal is switched off in February 2009 (see Millions Unprepared For Analogue TV Switch Off In US).
Nielsen found that adults older than 55 are better prepared than younger households in the States.
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