Friday, 15 February 2008

HD Gives Digital Pay TV a Boost

The Direct-to-Home (DTH) pay-TV market is expected to continue growing at about 7.6% annually in subscribers from 2006 to 2011, and new services such as high-definition TV will help increase revenue.

These findings are part of a recent study released by high-tech market research firm In-Stat, titled "Worldwide Digital Satellite Pay TV Market".

The study also found that rapid growth in the subscriber base will occur in certain less mature markets like Africa and India, where new DTH providers have or will begin service.

"In more mature markets, growth rates, while slower, remain positive being spurred forward by bundled and premium services such as HD," says Michael Inouye, In-Stat analyst.

"HD is rapidly becoming a key differentiator in the US, and some Western European countries like the UK have exhibited strong growth potential for high definition, e.g., 273% growth in HD subscribers from 3Q06 to 3Q07 for BSkyB in the UK."

Other findings include:

- There will be 129 million DTH pay-TV subscribers worldwide by 2011.

- Revenues will eclipse 96 billion by 2011.

- As IPTV/telco TV expands and takes a competitive position as a third or fourth pay-TV category, the markets will further fractionate, creating added pressures to differentiate.