Global fixed broadband subscriptions stood at 422 million at the end of 2008, adding nearly 68 million subscriptions in the year and 16 million in the final quarter, according to new figures from Informa Telecoms & Media.
Western Europe has seen broadband growth stagnate, said the research firm, as all but five of its 30 countries now exceed a household penetration level of 50% and 20 countries enjoy penetration of over 60%.
China, where broadband subscriptions grew by 21% over 2008 to reach 82 million subscriptions, passed the USA mid-year to become the world’s largest fixed broadband market, though it still has a household penetration level of below 20%.
The IPTV total stood at 19.96 million at the end of 2008. Growth was steady but not spectacular, registering net additions of 7.5 million. Informa said that what is significant is the fact that, of the four main multichannel TV platforms, IPTV and digital terrestrial (DTT) are increasing their share of the market and now hold 10% and 3% of the global market, respectively.
Julian Herbert, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, said: “It is a fair observation that IPTV has not made the sort of inroads into broadband homes which operators might have expected, but it is wrong to declare that the concept is doomed to fail.
“In markets where the bandwidth is available and the marketing and pricing are attractive, IPTV is attracting big volumes of new customers and helping operators to improve retention rates and increase fixed line ARPU.”
The research was based on a continuous programme of research covering 730 fixed broadband operators in 160 countries and nearly 100 IPTV operators in 50 countries.
A report published by In-Stat in February claimed that not even a global financial meltdown can stop the growth of IPTV.
It forecast that despite the worldwide economic crisis, subscribers to telco TV, which includes TV delivered by telecom operators via IP as well as other technologies, will grow more than three-fold by the end of 2012 (see Financial meltdown not expected to affect IPTV growth).
Towards the end of 2008, Multimedia Research Group forecast that IPTV subscribers would grow from 20.4 million last year to 89.6 million in 2012 (see IPTV to reach 89.6m subscribers globally in 2012).
