South Korea’s IPTV market is booming; tops 10 million subs
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PDFNew figures released with week by the Korea Digital Media Industry Association say that IPTV numbers now top 10 million in South Korea.
KT Corp. remains the largest of the country’s three IPTV providers with 5.48 million subscribers, SK Broadband has 2.5 million and LG Uplus clocked in at 2.02 million.
IPTV services launched in 2009.
In fact, way back in 2012, the trio, adding some 30,000 to 40,000 new subs each week, eagerly was eyeing 8 million users as the next big milestone.
“IPTV operators are more desperate than before in their efforts to attract subscribers, each releasing new packages,” one industry exec told the Yonhap News. “We see the growth will be maintained with no difficulty until the number of subscribers reaches 8 million.”
The market passed 8 million IPTV subscribers in 2013.
The trio reported 9 million subscribers in March of this year.
Strong growth in Asia – particularly in the maturing markets of China and South Korea – is pushing adoption of IPTV faster than cable or satellite, and the trend is likely to continue globally.
A Research and Markets report forecasting the industry’s global growth through 2016, said that IPTV subscriber numbers were strong in 2012, producing revenue of $29 billion for service providers. That figure is expected to grow to more than $56 billion by 2016, R&M said, a CARG of more than 18%.
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Category: ANALYSIS
About the Author (Author Profile)
Jim O’Neill has been a business journalist since 1992, and has been writing about the digital media industry since 2007. He formerly was the editor of industry journals FierceIPTV and FierceOnlineVideo, and has worked as an industry analyst for international research firm Parks Associates. He currently is CEO and Editor of theConvergence.tv, a newsletter that takes a deeper look at the trends and happenings in the digital media industry, and continues writing research and white papers on a variety of topics in the sector. He can be reached at jim@theconvergence.tvConnect
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