IPTV Use Expected To Soar

The number of subscribers to Internet television worldwide is expected to increase twelve fold by 2010, bringing with it a host of new services for consumers, a market research firm said Thursday.

The number of IPTV subscribers is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 92.1 percent to 63.1 million in 2010 from 2.4 million last year, iSuppli Corp. said. The number of subscribers is expected to reach 5.3 million this year.

"The fight to capture the expanding base of IPTV subscribers will put telecom operators on a collision course with existing pay-TV market competitors and with a new class of broadband video portals as they roll-out progressively more sophisticated offerings," Mark Kirstein, vice president, multimedia content and services for iSuppli, said in a statement.

The IPTV subscriber base is expected to generate more than $27 billion in overall services revenue in 2010. Video services are expected to make up the bulk of the revenues, with value-added media services and IPTV operator advertising accounting for more than 14 percent.

In addition, content licensing revenues across all IPTV services are expected to reach $11 billion at the end of the forecast.ISuppli sees the market evolving in three phases. The first will be basic service deployment, followed by an array of value-added and interactive services, and finally, dramatic improvements in integration and interactivity.

Integration is expected across voice and data services and content types, such as video, voice, music, gaming, data services and user content. Interactivity will be found in communications, community services, voting, advertising and buying products and services over TV.

Personalization features expected include individualized advertising and video programming and recording; and intelligent TV recommendations.

Value-added services could include on-demand gaming, music, media applications, home networking management, security and data.

Asia is expected to achieve the largest subscriber base in the world this year, and hold on to the lead through 2010. The Americas region, however, is expected to yield the highest average revenue per user starting this year, which means the region would lead the world in terms of IPTV dollars.0