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Interactive TV
The number of subscribers worldwide to telco/IPTV services will approach 40 million by year-end 2009, according to international research firm Parks Associates. The strong growth in telco/IPTV services is due partly to aggressive provider deployments, according to the firm's new white paper IPTV and the Digital Home, but the most successful rollouts will incorporate multiple services, such as home networking, convergence in entertainment and communications features, and unique interactive services such as quality on-demand programming.
Parks Associates reports the number of telco/IPTV households worldwide grew by nearly 80% in 2008 to exceed 20 million. The growth rate will exceed 50% in 2009. (Parks Associates, July 2009)
MySpace has partnered with Yahoo and Intel to create a "MySpace Widget for TV", which will allow users to interact with MySpace on a new generation of web-connected TVs. As per the information available, the widget is based on a TV application developed by Yahoo and running on devices with Intel's Media Processor chip, which will be included in TVs made by Samsung, Toshiba and other device-makers. Its part of a major effort by the two companies to marry television and the web on a host of new TVs, set-top boxes, and other devices. (Eye for Travel, January 2009)
Google is due to release an update to its mobile application for the iPhone that will enable users to speak search terms into the phone rather than using the keypad. The application uses the iPhone's motion sensor to determine when to start recording, and then performs the search. The application is location sensitive, so searching for ‘Coffee shops' will bring up a list of coffee houses in the users vicinity. (IT Pro, December 2008)
A poll of analysts suggests most believe sales for mobile phones are hitting a very rough patch, and could leave handsets sitting on shelves. Mobile phone sales will shrink next year at their fastest pace ever as consumers cut spending, a Reuters poll showed, with analysts increasingly concerned about unsold phones piling up in stores.
On average, the poll of 36 analysts shows global market volumes shrinking 6.6% next year and 5.7% in the fourth quarter - traditionally the strongest period for the industry due to holiday sales. In a similar poll in early November analysts on average forecast the market to rise 2.6% in 2009.
But since then Nokia, the world's top mobile phone maker, has warned twice on market growth, saying on 4 December its best guess was for sales to fall 5% or more next year.
Analyst estimates varied significantly due to the uncertainties over economic growth, with 2009 forecasts ranging from a market contraction of 13% to growth of 3%. Only two analysts polled expect growth next year. (IT Pro, December 2008)
Worldwide sales of fixed and mobile WiMAX equipment, as well as phones/Ultra Mobile PCs, fell by 21% to $245m in 3Q08 compared with the previous quarter. The figures come from an updated report from Infonetics, 'WiMAX and WiFi Mesh Network Equipment and Devices', in which the research firm expects WiMAX sales to continue to slide down through 2009 due to the economic recession.
According to Infonetics' report, fixed WiMAX already had reached its plateau prior to the economic downturn, having its third consecutive quarter of revenue decline. Mobile WiMAX overtook fixed WiMAX spending in the first quarter of 2008 and now makes up almost three-quarters of worldwide WiMAX equipment sales.
However, while Infonetics says the global recession will likely cause some consumers and enterprises to postpone WiMAX adoption, demand for personal broadband services continues to grow. The number of worldwide fixed and mobile WiMAX subscribers is expected by Infonetics to top 76 million in 2011 as demand, albeit slower, will continue through the recession. Asia Pacific leads by far in mobile WiMAX subscribers, accounting for roughly two thirds of the worldwide total in 2008 driven by South Korea, India and Pakistan. (Telecoms, December 2008)
Mobile TV services are forecast to generate $1.5bn in revenues in 2008, rising to over $10bn in 2013, when nearly half the revenues will come from advertising. The figures were released Wednesday by industry analyst and telecoms.com parent Informa Telecoms & Media, which said that while the bulk of mobile TV revenues presently come from subscription fees, the advertising business model is expected to gain prominence over time.
By and large, mobile TV has turned out to be something of a disappointment for the operator community. Most in the industry believed that mobile TV was going to reach the mass market a lot earlier than has been the case. But a number of market and technology barriers have conspired to delay the widespread adoption of mobile TV by consumers and growth in many regions is still fragile.
As a result, Informa reckons that the future of mobile TV will not be just broadcast or 3G but will be a mix of technologies matched to a mix of audience experiences. In the next two years, growth is anticipated to be strongest in the pioneering markets of South Korea and Japan before the rest of the world starts to catch up around 2010/2011. Despite isolated success stories in places like Italy and Austria, Europe is not expected to see rapid growth in mobile TV until 2009. The USA is expected to take even longer as confusion over standards prevents growth. Eventually, concerted momentum behind ATSC-MH is expected to boost the market for mobile TV in North America. (Telecoms, December 2008)
The number of online video viewers will grow by more than two-thirds to 941 million in 2013, from 563 million in 2008, according to ABI Research. The 2013 estimate represents just over one-half of the 1.8 billion consumers expected to use the internet that year.
Although online video viewing is growing among internet users worldwide, viewing varies greatly from country to country. More than three-quarters of consumers in Australia, Germany, India, Japan, the UK and the US surveyed in Q3 2008 by IBM Global Business Services said they watched video on their PCs - outpacing viewership for the world as a whole.
Online video viewing has increased dramatically during the past year alone. A look back at online video viewing in a wide range of countries from a study conducted in 2007 revealed relatively low usage.
That study, by the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future and the World Internet Project, was not made public until November 2008. It is surprising to note that back in 2007, a majority of internet users in eight out of the 13 countries surveyed (including the US) said they never downloaded or watched online video. (Emarketer, December 2008)
According to research released by analysts at Capgemini, mobile advertising is the fastest growing medium among the non-traditional channels, with a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 66%. The consultancy firm notes that as this trend develops, different platform providers will be able to offer advertisers greater and greater levels of behavioural targeting and customer intelligence. Operators have a good chance of controlling this market through their proven ability to gather and build network related customer intelligence.
In order to develop next generation customer intelligence management capabilities, operators need to build new architectures to support them. Key requirements include the ability to gather complex and unstructured customer profiling information; integrate with third party sources; and generate analyses that are actionable by advertisers.
A recent report from analyst house and telecoms.com parent Informa Telecoms & Media, warned that companies will only be able to capitalise on the predicted stellar growth of mobile advertising if media planners and buyers get access to more granular data from mobile marketing campaigns. This should include data on audience composition, the number of unique visitors browsing the site, time users spent viewing an ad and ad conversion rates. (Telecoms.com, October 2008)
Digital television adoption in Western Europe and North America will show strong growth over the next two years as consumers demand enhanced features, greater breadth of content and bundled communications offerings, according to Datamonitor. A further key driver of the transition to digital TV will be the switch-off of analogue transmission in these regions.
DTV is expected to grow by an average of 12% year-on-year, with particularly strong adoption in the near term as broadcasters terminate analogue terrestrial television. In 2007, there were 158 million households using DTV services in Western Europe and the US; by 2012, Datamonitor expects an estimated 274 million digital TV households in these regions.
For most national markets, the significant increase in DTV services will occur around 12 to 24 months prior to analogue signal termination. Indeed, driven by campaigns from national regulatory authorities and public service broadcasters, there will be a massive push to migrate consumers to digital platforms to free up valuable spectrum capacity.
Meanwhile, digital terrestrial television (DTT) households in Europe and the US will increase from 26 million in 2007 to 55 million by 2012, illustrating an average yearly growth rate of 16%. As a whole, however, Datamonitor expects a significant migration away from free-to-air services in the medium to long term, as bundled offerings (triple play, quad play etc.), enhanced features and premium content become more important to consumers. (Datamonitor, August 2008)
Adult internet users in selected countries worldwide who are interested in paying for TV show downloads, Q1 2008 (% of respondents), according to eMarketer:
- Mexico: 75%
- Italy: 50%
- Brazil: 46%
- France: 42%
- Spain: 42%
- UK: 35%
- US: 28%
- Germany: 26%
(eMarketer, June 2008)
Only 4% of global TV households will actively watch high definition (HD), programming by the end of 2008, totalling 44 million households, according to Informa Telecoms and Media.
By 2012, however, Informa forecasts 179 million active HD homes, representing 16% of TV households.
HD adoption will be highest in North America. By 2012, HD penetration is expected to reach 70% or 82.5 million active US HD homes and 9.4 million HD homes in Canada. Asia-Pacific is the second-largest HD region due to early adoption in Japan. By 2012, there will be 49.3 million HD households in Asia-Pacific.
Owning an HD-capable television set does not necessarily mean HD programming is being watched. Informa estimated the number of HD-ready homes in 2008 at 117 million, implying that only 37% of these households are actually watching HD programming. (eMarketer, April 2008)
There were more than 14 million IPTV households worldwide in 2007, up from 4.7 million in 2006, according to Parks Associates. Europe showed particularly strong growth, with numbers rising by more than 250%. It now accounts for nearly 60% of worldwide IPTV households.
IPTV services provide European operators with a critical toehold in attracting and retaining customers, according to Parks Associates. However, IPTV is a small part of a crowded market of terrestrial, satellite and cable offerings, and the competition will be intense. (Parks Associates, April 2008)
Recently, eMarketer estimated there were 12.5 million IPTV households worldwide in 2007, with 60% or 7.5 million households in Europe. Asia-Pacific was the second-largest IPTV market in 2007 with 3.3 million households. A mere 1.2 million were in the US. By 2012, eMarketer expects there will be 61.1 million IPTV households worldwide. (eMarketer, April 2008)
IPTV’s popularity is rising as internet connections get ever-faster. AT&T and Verizon are offering IPTV to many subscribers of their fiber-based internet service. internet service providers are eager to offer more than just commoditized broadband connections, and IPTV fits the bill. As a result, IPTV service revenues will approach $14 billion ($13.7 billion) in 2012, from $694 million in 2007, according to Strategy Analytics' "US IPTV Forecast and Outlook" report.
The US and Canada are expected to drive IPTV subscriptions worldwide. ABI Research forecast more than 90 million IPTV subscriptions worldwide by the end of 2013, up from 13.5 million in 2007, in a March 2008 report.
IPTV will see particularly substantial growth in North America and most emerging markets, according to ABI.
TV delivered through computer networks is old hat in Western Europe, where it has been available since 1999. France has especially high penetration because many households there have fiber broadband connections. In contrast, ABI said that Germany and the UK have a lot of room for IPTV growth.
IPTV adoption in the Asia-Pacific region has been held back by regulatory issues and low broadband penetration in key markets. (eMarketer, March 2008)
The total number of IPTV subscribers worldwide grew by 117% in 2007, reaching 12.34 million at year end, compared to 5.71 million at the end of 2006. According to new figures from the World Broadband Information Service from Informa Telecoms & Media, the biggest region for IPTV remains Western Europe. European IPTV subscribers topped 6.9 million in 2007, accounting for 57% of the global total.
The bulk of subscriptions were in France, where incumbent France Telecom and alternative operators Free, Neuf and Telecom Italia's Alice, attracted more than 5 million IPTV customers by bundling the service free with broadband. Although a large proportion of these subscribers may not be paying for additional content, they receive free to air channels with their basic triple play packages, leading to France being in a league of its own when it comes to IPTV subscriptions. The country has nearly ten times as many IPTV subscriptions as second placed Spain and close to 75 per cent of the Western Europe total.
Notable gains were also made by the Asia Pacific region where China is now at around the 1 million subscriber mark. It has slightly fewer IPTV subscribers than in Hong Kong, which passed the 1 million mark in September and is now the world's most mature IPTV market, serving TV to 60 per cent of DSL customers.
The US has also begun to make headway, adding more than 1 million customers in 2007, largely on the back of fibre to the home (FTTH) rollouts led by Verizon and AT&T. Now more than half of the broadband subscribers in the US, connected using FTTH, view TV over their broadband connection. (Telecoms.com, March 2008)
Television delivered by internet protocol (IPTV) will be used in 38.4 million homes worldwide by 2012, according to Informa Telecoms & Media's "IPTV - A Global Analysis" report.
Informa estimated that IPTV subscriptions and video-on-demand would generate an estimated $14.7 billion in worldwide revenue by 2012, up from $1.5 billion in 2006.
The 2012 estimate included $13.6 billion from subscription revenues and $1.1 billion from VOD. That revenue will come from a mere 3.1% of the world's TV households.
In the shorter term we are forecasting 10.6 million IPTV households by the end of 2007, double the 2006 figure of 5.3 million. (eMarketer, December 2007)
The number of those using internet protocol television services worldwide increased 179% in the 12 months ended June 30, 2007, according to Point-Topic data. Europe added more than 3 million IPTV subscribers in the period. More than 8 million people worldwide connect to IPTV services. (eMarketer, October 2007)
Internet television advertising revenue will hit $10 billion worldwide by 2011, according to an August 2007 Understanding & Solutions press release. That would equal 18% of all internet advertising that year, which the firm forecast at $57 billion.
Understanding & Solutions also stated that the amount of video on the internet is doubling each year. Globally, they estimate there are more than 20 billion videos being streamed across the web each and every month. In the US alone, active internet video users are streaming an average of 55 videos per month and this is just the beginning.
Most internet TV content will be free to users over the next one or two years. Viewing will take place mainly on PCs and handheld devices. Early adopters are already networking internet TV to their main TV screens. But it will be another three years before the technology is widely accepted as a conventional system for delivering content to the living room.
iSuppli estimated worldwide online TV revenues for 2011 at $5.8 billion, up from $422.7 million in 2006.
Internet protocol TV (IPTV) has only just emerged in the US and is unlikely to challenge other TV distribution platforms, according to Kagan Research.
US TV subscribers, by distribution platform in 2006:
- TV households: 111.6 million
- Cable TV subscribers: 65.6 million
- Digital cable TV subscribers: 34.0 million
- Satellite TV subscribers: 29.6 million
- IPTV subscribers: 0.6 million
(eMarketer, August 2007)
Nearly a billion consumers worldwide will watch internet video by 2012, up from roughly 300 million today, according to ABI Research's "Broadband Video and internet TV" report.
ABI said that who pays for video online will largely be determined by who foots the bill through existing models. For broadcast television, including primetime TV content, they anticipate that ad support will be the primary engine of monetization as this content moves online. Movie content new to the home video window will be largely consumer pay-supported.
User-generated content will be ad-supported, as sites such as YouTube and social networking sites make increasing use of content produced by their own online users as a way to drastically increase their inventory of premium advertising opportunities. They believe that pay-video adoption will grow through sites such as iTunes where consumer hardware platforms create end-to-end user experiences that enable easy access to premium video. (eMarketer, July 2007)
Mobile broadcast TV subscribers will total 155.6 million worldwide by the end of 2012, up from 4.4 million in June 2007, according to Datamonitor's "Opportunities in the Mobile Broadcast TV Market, 2006-2012" report.
Mobile broadcast TV subscribers worldwide:
- 2007: 4.4 million
- 2010: 65.6 million
- 2012: 155.6 million
eMarketer projects that by 2011 there will be significantly more paying mobile video subscribers than mobile TV subscribers worldwide, largely because of the level of 3G penetration. Specifically, there will be approximately 120 million 3G subscribers who pay a premium on top of their data subscriptions for mobile video clips or streams. There will be nearly 80 million mobile TV subscribers worldwide by 2011.
The firm estimated that by 2012 the Asia-Pacific region would have the highest number of mobile broadcast subscribers (76.3 million), followed by Europe (42.7 million) and North America (35.6 million). (eMarketer, June 2007)
As broadband connectivity spreads around the world, so do the value-added services of voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and internet protocol television (IPTV).
Internet telephony, both free and paid services, grew rapidly during 2006, driven by the rapid uptake of high-speed internet, a greater awareness of VoIP and attractive bundled offerings from service providers. eMarketer expects approximately 30% of broadband households worldwide to subscribe to a paid VoIP service by 2011. In addition to paid subscriptions, millions of broadband households are regularly using free internet voice services from companies such as Skype, which recently reported 171 million registered users at the end of 2006, up nearly 100 million from a year earlier.
Requiring considerably more bandwidth and technical know-how from service providers, IPTV is still in its infancy worldwide, according to eMarketer. Nevertheless, it is on track to reshape a number of major industries.
Three key elements are necessary for IPTV to grow and prosper: Bandwidth, Favourable regulatory environment, Favourable TV market dynamics
Considering that France is the only country in the world with more than one million IPTV subscribers to date, it seems that few countries have yet to satisfy these three requirements. As a result, the growth of IPTV will be patchy across the globe, according to eMarketer that forecasts 41.1 million IPTV households worldwide in 2011, up from approximately five million in 2006. (eMarketer, April 2007)
Every member of the mobile video value chain acknowledges that advertising will play a crucial role in developing the channel into a significant consumer service, according to eMarketer. Unfortunately, nobody is quite sure exactly what that means. Everyone agrees, however, that there is a demand for the service and it's growing.
eMarketer forecasts that the total number of mobile TV and video subscribers globally will rise from 40 million in 2006 to over 750 million in 2011. At the same time, worldwide paying subscribership will go up to nearly 200 million, and revenue will reach nearly $13 billion.
% of consumers in selected countries worldwide that is planning to surf the Web via their mobile phone in the future, February-March 2006 (% of respondents):
- Brazil: 8%
- China: 12%
- France: 6%
- Germany: 8%
- India: 16%
- Italy: 13%
- Japan: 7%
- Spain: 8%
- Saudi Arabia: 6%
- UK: 8%
- US: 10%
Total: 9%
(eMarketer, April 2007)
The number of worldwide internet Protocol TV (IPTV) subscribers will rise to 103 million in 2011, up from 3.9 million in 2006, according to iSuppli.
IPTV subscribers worldwide, by region in 2011:
- Americas: 15.5 million, up from 355,000 in 2006
- Asia: 40.6 million, up from 1.6 million in 2006
- Europe: 46.9 million, up from 2.0 million in 2006
- Worldwide: 103 million, up from 3.9 million in 2006
Forecasts for IPTV subscribers worldwide vary widely. After all, this is still a new service. By 2010 there could be as many as 70 million IPTV subscribers worldwide, or as few as 26 million, according to various other sources.
iSuppli's current 2010 estimate is up more than 12 million from the forecast it made less than a year ago. iSuppli said that IPTV is a critical part of triple-play offerings, which are growing in popularity. (eMarketer, April 2007)
More than half of communications industry executives believe that Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) can generate significant revenue within the first three years of service, according to findings of a survey by Accenture and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
The survey of nearly 350 executives from telecommunications, broadcasting and media companies across 46 countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia revealed industry-wide confidence in the longer-term outlook for IPTV, with 60% believing that IPTV will generate significant revenues within three years.
However, confidence in the short-term outlook remains mixed, with 52% of respondents saying they are not confident in the ability of IPTV to generate significant revenues within the next 12 months. On the other hand, 20% of respondents said they are confident or very confident, and 28% said they are somewhat to fairly confident, that IPTV will generate significant revenues within 12 months. (Accenture, February 2007)
The total number of households subscribing to IPTV services is expected to grow tenfold over the next five years, according to Strategy Analytics. The company forecasts that the number of IPTV households worldwide will grow from 6 million homes in 2006 to more than 80 million in 2011.
But the analyst believes that many users will not be paying directly for TV programming or services, but will use IPTV "free of charge" as part of a package of bundled broadband services.
In fact, paid for IPTV services only account for around 50% of the total at present and will continue to contribute a similar proportion through 2011. The analyst predicts that the number of households worldwide paying for IPTV services will rise from 3.3 million in 2006 to 40.9 million in 2011. (Telecoms.com, January 2007)
Legitimate online TV and video services will generate worldwide revenues of $6.3 billion in 2012, almost 10 times the 2006 figure, according to the "Online TV and Video: Beyond User-Generated Content" report published by Informa Telecoms & Media.
Top 5 countries worldwide ranked by online TV and video revenues 2006-2012:
- US: $538 million (2006) and $3,941 million (2012)
- UK: $42 million (2006) and $708 million (2012)
- Japan: $24 million (2006) and $510 million (2012)
- Germany: $9 million (2006) and $254 million (2012)
- France: $10 million (2006) and $238 million (2012)
(eMarketer, January 2007)
The number of households around the world subscribing to internet Protocol television (IPTV) services offered by telecom carriers will reach 48.8 million in 2010, according to Gartner. Buoyed by new service launches, IPTV subscribers will more than double in 2007 from an expected 6.4 million in 2006 to 13.3 million.
Despite the eight-fold increase in users between 2006 and 2010, Gartner says that carriers will struggle to turn IPTV into a mainstream Pay TV distribution platform on par with established cable or satellite services. As a result, the global picture for IPTV revenue is much less impressive than for subscriber numbers. Global IPTV revenue during the period will grow from $872 million in 2006 to a still relatively modest $13.2 billion by 2010.
Gartner defines IPTV as the delivery of video programming (either broadcast or on-demand) over a carrier's managed broadband network to a customer's TV set. It does not include streaming media over the internet to a PC.
Despite some early successes by a handful of carriers showing that consumers are willing to adopt IPTV - notably in France, Italy and Hong Kong - the market remains in its infancy. Many of the world’s largest carriers are taking a cautious approach to rolling out services, mindful that cable and satellite operators are also continually evolving their Pay TV offers, and that they, as carriers, need to be able to match the competition in functionality and content choice if they are to make an impact.
Gartner says subscriber growth in the next nine to 12 months will largely come from IPTV services that are already launched. However, beginning in 2007, many more new services will go commercial and subscriber growth will begin to take off. (Gartner, September 2006)
Driven by widespread adoption of broadband, internet protocol TV (IPTV) is an idea whose time is finally coming. The latest report from eMarketer, "IPTV: The Global Picture", projects that the total number of broadband households worldwide will grow to approximately 422 million by 2010 (up from 195 million in 2005). Of that number, 139 million will have sufficient bandwidth to receive IPTV. This excludes cable broadband subscribers who are unlikely to be offered an alternative method of receiving their TV programming soon.
eMarketer forecasts strong IPTV growth in the US, with the total number of subscribers projected to reach 8.7 million subscribers by 2010, rising from a low base of 300,000 in 2005. (eMarketer, August 2006)
A report from analyst firm Juniper Research predicts that Broadcast Mobile TV will reach revenues of $11.7bn worldwide by 2011. Japan is predicted to lead the market with revenues reaching $2.9bn and the US will follow closely at $1.8bn. The UK is also predicted to be a key market at $989m. (Telecoms.com, July 2006)
internet Protocol TV (IPTV) equipment and service revenue is expected to hit US$44 billion over the next three years, according to a report by Infonetics Research.
The research firm said worldwide IPTV subscribers will climb to 53 million by 2009. To meet that demand, service providers are rapidly increasing their investments in infrastructure, transport and content.
Europe, the Middle East and Asia are the leading regions for IPTV service revenue. Subscribers in the Asia-Pacific region, where faster forms of DSL such as VDSL2 are stimulating subscriber growth, almost doubled from 2004 to 2005. The report further states that IPTV subscribers in North America will increase four-fold between 2005 and 2009.
By 2009, Infonetics expects IPTV equipment revenue will be $6 billion and service revenue will climb to $38 billion. Worldwide IPTV equipment revenue topped $400 million in 2005. (asia.internet.com, May 2006)
Some call it the third screen. Some call it the small screen. Others simply call it mobile television (MTV). But everyone agrees, it represents a huge opportunity. 2006 is the year that carriers, content providers and marketers are sitting up, taking notice and starting to experiment and invest in mobile television initiatives.
eMarketer looked at the various global trials, carrier and content provider announcements and concluded that there will be well over 100 million active users of paid or sponsored mobile broadcast video services globally by the end of 2009. By the same time, there will be well over 2.5 billion mobile users.
The demographics, income and spending patterns of early and near-term adopters will be crucial for marketers trying to determine whether mobile TV represents a sub-market or the next huge mass market for mobile services.
From a technical point-of-view, the two pivot points for mobile TV are growth in smartphones and growth of advanced 3G networks. These are table stakes to move mobile TV past the pilot stage toward critical mass and finally mass-market penetration.
The most extensive consumer trials of mobile TV have been in Europe, with one pilot in France, another in Finland, two in the UK and another in Spain. The general results show willingness on the part of participants to purchase mobile TV services, typically with a low flat-rate fee. Users also demonstrated viewing habits roughly in line with expectations (e.g. preference for familiar and/or short program offers centered around sports, news and entertainment; viewing during non-peak hours; viewing during both the commute and at home). Perhaps most importantly, customer surveys consistently show reticence on the part of consumers to pay more than $5-10 extra per month for mobile data services in general. (eMarketer, March 2006)
Consumers around the globe are confused about what internet Protocol Television (IPTV) means, according to a survey released today by Accenture. The survey of 6,000 consumers across the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy found that 46% do not understand the term IPTV - whereby broadcast-quality digital television is delivered over an internet-enabled telephone network.
However, despite consumer uncertainty, the survey reveals that the market for the services IPTV can provide is substantial in each country. As part of the survey, respondents were asked what they would do to make television better; the top two answers were "having access to a larger number of movies," selected by 30% of respondents and "being able to create your own channel to watch programs whenever you want," selected by 26%.
When asked what future benefits would encourage consumers to subscribe to an IPTV service, the greatest number of respondents (55%) selected less advertising, followed by the ability to choose specialist programs (47%).
Despite a general lack of understanding about what IPTV means, there is strong consumer interest in the benefits that such a service could bring according to Accenture.
Cost is cited most often as the main barrier to adoption, with 54% percent of respondents indicating they are not willing to pay an extra fee to get an entertainment service that allows them to search for content such as TV, radio shows and music whenever they want. Other key concerns slowing the rate of adoption include security issues (38%), such as computer viruses and general quality of service (39%) including poor connections.
The findings showed a consistent trend across all six countries represented in the survey, with younger adults indicating a greater willingness to adopt and pay for IPTV services than older ones. From a gender perspective men also indicated a greater interest in IPTV than women. (Accenture, March 2006)
The Multimedia Research Group projects continued explosive internet Protocol Television (IPTV) growth around the world in the next two years. IPTV revenues worldwide are expected to reach $7.20 billion by 2008, up from $0.64 in 2004.
The overall shift to IP-based services holds many technological and competitive challenges, but brings with it opportunities to sell more than just TV and phone packages, according to eMarketer.
France is expected to lead the way in adoption, although other countries such as China will eventually overtake it in terms of sheer numbers. (eMarketer, March 2006)
