FRANKFURT (Reuters) -
The number of Internet TV subscribers
more than doubled in 2007 to 12.3 million worldwide, driven by
western Europe where some broadband suppliers offered the
service for free, according to a report.
Western Europe, led by France, accounted for 57 percent of
global IPTV subscribers, research firm Informa Telecoms & Media
said in a report published on Tuesday.
Traditional telecom providers are seeking new revenue
streams to compensate for declining sales of fixed-line
connections for voice calls, and IPTV is a promising new area,
especially for state incumbents with extensive networks.
Informa said France Telecom, Iliad's Free, Neuf and Telecom
Italia's Alice had attracted more than 5 million IPTV
subscribers between them in France by bundling the service free
with broadband offers.
A large number of those subscribers may not be paying for
additional content, however, Informa said.
"2007 was a watershed year for IPTV as many western
European telcos launched full packages," the report said,
adding that IPTV was still in its first phase of rollout and
growth.
"It will be interesting to note their approach to IPTV in
the future: whether it is used to increase customer loyalty or
whether it is a genuine money-making stand-alone service."
China now has about 1 million IPTV subscribers and Hong
Kong already had 1 million in September, making it the world's
most mature IPTV market with 60 percent of DSL broadband
customers subscribing for TV over the Web, Informa said.
Informa also said the United States added more than 1
million customers in 2007, largely thanks to fiber-to-the-home
rollouts by Verizon and AT&T. fiber-to-the-home delivers faster
connections than regular broadband.
In Germany and France, Deutsche Telekom and BT more than
doubled their subscriber numbers to reach more than 100,000
each.
(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Mike Elliott)
0 comments:
Post a Comment