SAN JOSE, CA--The Broadband Forum today announced the latest IPTV and broadband statistics, showing that the North American IPTV market has more than doubled in size in 2008 -- with growth of 113 percent despite the global economic downturn.
The report, prepared for the Forum by industry analysts Point Topic (GBS database at www.point-topic.com/home/gbs/), also showed a very healthy 19 percent growth of IPTV inside the last quarter, well ahead of other IPTV-focused regions South and East Asia and Latin America, whose last quarter growth both showed 12 percent.
The IPTV figures -- announced by the Broadband Forum at today's opening day of IPTV World Forum in London -- come at the same time as world broadband statistics for 2008 show a 62.6 million line growth to 410.9 million lines. While growth slowed late in the year generally, compared to the same quarter in 2007, several countries showed improved performance in the third quarter of 2008, including France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Singapore and The Philippines.
- IPTV global subscriber totals have now reached 21.7 million, which is an increase of 63 percent on the end of 2007 figures.
- "During 2008, IPTV operators showed that TV over IP could be deployed on a large scale," said John Bonsell, a senior analyst with Point Topic. "That has been the case particularly in the USA."
As expected, due to the global economic situation, broadband growth slowed, however all countries experienced overall growth during the last year.
In terms of technology, DSL continues to be the most popular broadband access technology, although fiber has grown twice as fast as either cable or DSL in the 12 months to Q4 2008. This should continue, given the number of new implementations and consumer and business demand for higher speeds. Value-added services such as IPTV are also proving to be strong drivers for FTTx uptake and have driven this technology through the 50 million mark worldwide.
The Broadband Forum's formal BroadbandSuite Release Program and all technical reports are publicly available at www.broadband-forum.org.
