Europe home to nine of the world’s top 20 IPTV operators

The world’s 20 Largest IPTV operators served 83% of global IPTV households last year, with nine of the top 20 located in Western Europe, according to SNL Kagan. 

The research firm said that as of year-end 2012, the nine biggest IPTV operators in Western Europe served 17.5 million subscribers – 30.4% of the top 20 IPTV providers’ subscriber base.

France was the second-largest IPTV market by subscribers after only China and is home to four operators ranked among the global top 20, according to SNL Kagan’s stats.

In total the world’s top 20 IPTV providers served 57.7 million subscribers at the end of last year  – 28.4 million in Asia Pacific, 17.5 million in Western Europe, 9.26 million in North America and 2.49 million in Eastern Europe.

“IPTV is the fastest-growing pay TV platform from a global perspective, increasing by 29.6% year-on-year in 2012 compared to cable’s 2.2% and satellite’s 10.1% year-on-year growth,” said Julija Jurkevic, SNL Kagan media and communications analyst.

“IPTV subscriber populations are largely concentrated in Europe and Asia where accelerated rollouts of next generation broadband networks are driving video service adoption,” Jurkevic added.

SNL said that Microsoft Mediaroom is the world’s most deployed IPTV platform, accounting for 16% of the world’s IPTV subscribers by the end of 2012.