Internationally speaking, IPTV is a force. Deutsche Telekom said its customer base grew 27 percent to 2 million customers; Magyar Telekom reported growth from "various TV products," especially IPTV, in Hungary, Macedonia and Montenegro. Even Hong Kong's PCCW reported "modest growth" for its 10-year-old service while noting that it will focus on strengthening its international programming lineup.
DT by far led the way when it came to subscriber growth, including outside of Germany, where its European operations reported customer gains of 145,000 subscribers during the year to hit 954,000.
Magyar Telekom reflected much of what is happening in the U.S. market. Its cable business saw a 20.5 percent subscriber decline in 2012, but its IPTV business was up 38.4 percent to 313,285 subs. Direct-to-home satellite showed a more modest 3.5 percent gain to reach 291,118 customers.
According to a story in Broadband TV News, the rapid IPTV growth was driven by Magyar's high-speed broadband network and the increasing popularity of interactive television.
In Hong Kong, PCCW reported that its subscriber acquisition growth was slowing even as it concluded multichannel distribution arrangements in Malaysia, Thailand, Canada and the United States. Still, the telco added 43,000 IPTV subs over 2012 and now has 1.18 million, according to a story in IPTV News.
Going forward, the carrier is "committed to strengthening its program lineup with more high quality production and premium content acquisitions, which will be complemented by its multiscreen strategy," George Chan, PCCW's group managing director, said in the IPTV News story.
For more:
- Digital TV Europe had this story
- Broadband TV News had this story
- IPTV News had this story
Related articles:
Magyar Telekom CTO: Integrate set-top functionality into TV
PCCW, Tinet establish joint Ethernet extension partnership
Hong Kong's PCCW debuts new VOD service with promise of some early movie releases