Telco TV Subscribers Predicted To Double by 2011

Here's some interesting numbers from a new ABI Research report:

• Global pay-TV subscribers will number more than 730 million by the end of 2011.
• North America has the highest subscriber penetration and should reach 115.4 million by the end of 2011.
• Western Europe has the highest Telco TV penetration rate and continues to increase in subscriber numbers, especially in France, Italy and Germany.
• North America and Asia-Pacific regions are the second and third highest in Telco TV penetration. The numbers of subscribers in those regions are forecast to exceed 9 million and 15 million respectively by the end of 2011.
• In the Asia-Pacific region South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan are the leading countries in Telco TV adoption.
• Telco TV subscribers will number 47 million by the end of 2011, with a CAGR of 22.5% over the next five years (2009-2014).

Traditional Telco providers (like AT&T and Verizon in the U.S.) should continue to push hard and try and lock customers into broadband-based voice, video and data (triple play) contract offerings. What about the other providers? ABI Research associate Khin Sandi Lynn is quoted - Other type of pay-TV platforms, satellite, cable and terrestrial are also found to be increasing, although at a slower rate.

Wireless providers are not specifically mentioned in the summary but I'm guessing they will be next year as higher-bandwidth fourth-generation (4G), LTE and WiMAX service offerings grow in 2010.

You can get more information on this ABI Research report here.