A survey of 15,000 U.S. early adopters conducted by In-Stat and funded by Siemens found that 18 percent of America's early adopter respondents, who now subscribe to cable or satellite TV, will "probably" or "definitely" consider IPTV as a viable option. With 10 percent savings offered on IPTV, an additional 34 percent of the remaining respondents would "probably" or "definitely" switch. According to the survey, the most popular services are:
- Time-shifted TV: 90 percent are interested and 58 percent are willing to pay extra.
- Video Telephony/Chat: 53 percent are interested and of those, 48 percent are willing to pay extra.
- Video Home Surveillance: 58 percent interested and 43 percent are willing to pay extra.
- Gaming: 37 percent are interested (not a surprise as only adults were surveyed) and 46 percent of those are willing to pay extra.
Respondents were ready to shell out an additional $7.50 or less each month for each service. However, they would like some services at no extra fees--caller ID on TV (69 percent), interactive information (63 percent), call logging (58 percent) and remote programming (57 percent).
In-Stat principal analyst Michelle Abraham points out that interest in IPTV will grow with understanding of the service. Portable entertainment applications may attract more attention as fixed and mobile networks become more integrated. Siemens says that IPTV subscribers need assurance that telcos and other broadband operators can deliver services like pay-per-view and VoD that they expect. Then they'll be more open for IPTV. Last week, Accenture found that 46 percent of U.S. and European consumers do not understand IPTV.
For more on the survey:
- read the press release
- check out the survey slides