[Satellite TODAY Insider 04-18-11] Global pay-TV subscriptions rose 6 percent last year, with satellite pay-TV giants DirecTV and Dish Network contributing 19.6 million and 14.1 million subscribers, respectively in 2010, according to an In-Stat research report released April 15.
    The report ranked DirecTV second and Dish Network third behind cable provider Comcast. Other satellite pay-TV operators, such as BSkyB, Dish TV, Tata Sky, Tricolor and NTV Plus, also made the top 10 list.
    The In-Stat research also looked into global IPTV markets. Western Europe ranked as the largest regional market of IPTV subscribers with about 17.5 million subscribers, of which France contributed approximately 11 million customers. AT&T went from the sixth largest IPTV operator in the world at the end of 2009 to the fourth largest in 2010. In the United States, Verizon and AT&T ended 2010 with around 6.5 million TV subscribers.
    "Nearly every region showed gains or held their own in 2010. However, cable providers were impacted, to at least some degree, by a migration to satellite and/or IPTV in virtually every region. Only Western Europe showed any gains in the total number of cable TV subscribers," In-Stat Analyst Stephanie Pickering said in the report.
    Reports from other analysis firms agree that the dynamics of the global IPTV market are changing as telcos ramp up their offerings to compete against entrenched cable and satellite players. In March, IMS Research forecast that the worldwide IPTV subscriber base in 2015 would exceed 70 million, with Latin America and Eastern Europe markets expected to become IPTV hotspots.
    Multimedia Research Group (MRG) said earlier this year in its new IPTV Global Forecast that it predicts the number of global IPTV subscribers will grow from 44 million at the end of 2010 to 111.5 million in 2014 at a compound annual growth rate of 26 percent. MRG’s forecast predicts that Europe will be the regional leader, with 42 percent of the worldwide IPTV subscribers total in 2014, maintaining its lead mostly because of the sheer number of large tier-1 service providers, and because of continued strong IPTV growth in some countries.

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