22.5 million homes to tune into 3D by 2015

Over 20 million TV homes will be watching 3D TV within five years, according to Informa Telecoms & Media. Backed by content owners, broadcasters and pay-TV platforms, 3D will be in 1.6% of all homes by 2015.

“However, the market will still be very immature by 2015, so significant growth opportunities exist beyond this date,” the report authors noted.

North America will continue to lead the way in terms of number of 3D TV homes with 9.2 million by 2015. Western Europe will be the second largest region with 6.8 million 3D TV homes and Asia Pacific third with 4.6 million.

Despite the prediction that it will take off, the absence of a glasses-free system of watching 3D TV will constrain growth. “We believe that 3DTV will take off, but we also believe that 3D TV viewing will be limited until the technology has progressed sufficiently to remove the viewer’s need to wear glasses – which we estimate will be beyond our forecast period,” Informa noted.

Other limiting factors for 3D TV in the home include a lack of content, high production costs, scarcity of channels, bandwidth constraints and the high cost of 3D sets.