Having taken the best part of the previous decade to accumulate just a 12% share of all pay-TV subscriptions, IPTV operators are now set to gain a 19% share by 2015. According to our latest European pay TV forecasts, the number of IPTV subscriptions will increase by 92%, from 15.4 million in 2009 to 29.6 million in 2015, boosted by more-widespread deployment of NGA. This makes IPTV the fastest-growing TV platform (see Figure 1).
![Figure 1: Pay-TV subscriptions in Europe by platform, 2009–2015 [Source: Analysys Mason, 2010]](/PageFiles/15644/Figure_1.gif)
Figure 1: Pay-TV subscriptions in Europe by platform, 2009–2015 [Source: Analysys Mason, 2010]
The pay-TV market is becoming increasingly competitive, as a growing variety of players seek to attract a shrinking pool of new subscribers. In this context, there will inevitably be losers as well as winners during the next five years. Traditional cable and satellite platforms that have enjoyed the benefits of holding local or national monopolies, or duopolies, are coming under increasing pressure from new entrants – notably IPTV and, in some markets, pay-DTT operators. As relative newcomers to the market, IPTV and pay-DTT operators have priced their offers aggressively in an effort to gain market share.
Subscriptions to satellite propositions will continue to grow, primarily boosted by recent service launches in Central and Eastern Europe. However, we anticipate that their share of pay-TV subscriptions will decline by 1 percentage point to 29% in 2015.
The cable platform will continue to have the largest number of subscriptions overall, but we expect its share of subscriptions to decrease from 51% to 41%, as analogue subscribers defect to rival digital platforms, including FTA DTT services.
Free-to-air (FTA) propositions dominate the digital terrestrial television (DTT) market, but we expect strong growth for pay-DTT services. An 84% increase in the number of pay-DTT subscriptions to 17.2 million will lift the platform’s share of pay-TV subscriptions from 7% in 2009 to 11% in 2015.
Looking at the market overall, we anticipate that the number of pay-TV households in Europe (excluding Russia and CIS markets) will increase from 125.5 million at the end of 2009 to 145.0 million by the end of 2015, which represents a modest CAGR of 2.1%. As a result, household pay-TV penetration will rise from 58.5% to 66% during the forecast period. We expect spending on pay-TV services to grow at a CAGR of 4.9%, from EUR27.2 billion in 2009 to EUR38.0 billion in 2015, driven by the ongoing migration to digital TV services and the rising consumption of on-demand content.
Our forthcoming report, Pay TV in Europe: market sizings and forecasts 2010–2015, will provide detailed subscriber and revenue forecasts, split by platform, for 11 key countries in Europe, as well as selected regional breakdowns. For advice on how to generate additional revenue in today’s highly competitive market, please see our report Monetising pay-TV services: content strategies, business models and pricing.