IPTV in Asia-Pac to Reach 22.4 Million Subscribers by 2013

Perhaps because computers are main manufactured in Asia, the market for IPTV is dominating there. Market research firm Frost & Sullivan’s latest research titled “IPTV (News - Alert) Business Case” predicts that IPTV subscriptions will grow to about 22.4 million (32.7 percent) over the next four years in 13 Asia-Pacific countries. That’s about

 

Of the 13 countries, eight already had commercial IPTV services in 2007, while the rest are still conducting trials for deployments over the coming months. The Asia-Pacific accounts for about a third of the global IPTV subscriber base last year.

 

While Hong Kong is leading the group with 1.02 million subscribers, Mainland China is running close behind with 0.93 million customers, a figure that makes up 22.7 percent of the region’s market.

 

According to Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert), Hong Kong has the highest household IPTV penetration rate at about 45 percent, and is the only market where IPTV dominates the pay-TV industry with a 46 percent subscriber market share in 2007.

 

Cable TV controls 41 percent of Hong Kong's 2.1 million pay-TV subscriber markets, while satellite direct-to-home services hold the remaining 12 percent.

 

Though there are a handful of successful IPTV roll-outs, the business has not yet been very profitable for most service providers. To improve this, researchers suggests a full-throttle implementation of the service to realize immediate success.

 

"A long payback period is not unique to IPTV services, but is the case for all pay-TV services," said the consulting firm’s analyst Najam.