“Despite the economic downturn, telco TV market growth was strong in 2009. As a result, service revenue for the global telco TV market increased to nearly $12 billion in 2009 and will increase to nearly $17 billion by the end of 2010,” says Serene Fong, industry analyst at ABI Research. Western Europe generates the largest share of global revenue which will continue to grow from $6.8 billion in 2009 to $18.4 billion in 2014, a 22% compound annual growth rate.

Telco TV service revenue in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to reach $8 billion by the end of 2014, representing a 45.5% CAGR from 2009 to 2014. The increase in service revenue is due to growth in both the number of subscribers and the ARPU. In the Asia-Pacific region, Japan, South Korea and India saw significant increases in telco TV ARPU and service revenue and we forecast that the Japanese telco TV market will approach $3 billion service revenue by the end of 2014.

“Both satellite and cable TV service revenues are found to be growing slowly due to the more restrained growth in the number of subscribers,” comments research associate Khin Sandi Lynn. “Telco TV service revenue will grow rapidly due to customers’ increased adoption of triple play services.”

France Telecom, Iliad, AT&T and Verizon are leaders in telco TV markets. Verizon added 191,000 telco TV subscribers in 3Q 2009 alone, reaching 2.7 million viewers. Telco TV operators are trying to improve subscription growth by introducing new product features. For example, Korea Telecom, SK Broadband and LG Dacom are planning to add new channels to their telco TV services. Improved service quality would help to maintain the existing service price for telco TV subscriptions that would in turn help to increase ARPU and service revenue.

ABI Research has recently completed a quarterly update of its “Pay-TV ARPU and Revenue Database” which provides historical and forecast data for the ARPUs and revenues of satellite, cable, and telco TV services.

This Market Data product is a part of the company’s Digital Media Research Service which includes other Market Data products, Research Reports, Research Briefs, ABI Insights and analyst inquiry support.