An estimated 45 million households worldwide received HDTV services via DTH, cable, IPTV and DTT at the end of 2007, according to a new report.
The IMS Research study
The Worldwide Market for High-Definition TV Equipment & Services – 2008 Edition also found that approximately the same number of HDTV sets shipped during 2007.
IMS forecasts that 255 million TV households worldwide will be watching HDTV by the end of 2013, including video households viewing only pre-recorded non-broadcast programmes.
It also expects the Blu-ray Disc market to experience strong growth during the next five years, particularly as Blu-ray Disc drives in new PCs become more common, reaching a forecast $46 billion in revenues in 2013.
Shane Walker, research analyst and author of the study, said: “DTH continues to be the leading platform for HDTV service uptake due to its rapid transition from analogue to digital households and increased HD content availability. HD DTH households are forecast to grow on average at 27.5% annually, reaching 97 million households at the end of 2013. The most significant service uptake is expected prior to 2010, after which time the HDTV household growth rate is expected to fall below 30% annually.
“Approximately 62% of the worldwide cable households are located in the Asia Pacific region. Because of this, the slow conversion from analogue to digital cable TV service in the Asia Pacific region is significantly skewing the worldwide forecast for HD cable households.”
However, in contrast to the IMS research, a report from Informa Telecoms & Media published in April said that there will be nearly 44 million active HD households by the end of 2008, up 19 million from the end of 2007 (or 2% of global TV households) (see HDTV Could Be On Brink Of Mass Market Acceptance).
Towards the end of last year, Continental Research released research which found that of all UK consumers aware of HDTV, the proportion of people likely to subscribe has jumped to 30%, with 5% of these saying they are almost certain to subscribe to the service (see Likely Subscribers To HDTV Jumps To 30%).
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