A little bit of good news, and a little bit of bad news on the 3D TV front.
Informa says it believes 3D TV viewing will continue to expand around the world with North America--specifically the U.S.--leading the charge.
The bad news? The charge won't be a very big one for the moment.
Informa says it expects just 8.7 million U.S. households to be active 3D TV viewers by the end of 2015, about 7 percent of the U.S. market; Japan (2 million households), the U.K. (1.6 million) and Korea (1.5 million) making up the remainder of the Big Four. Worldwide 3D TV penetration is forecast at just 1.6 percent by 2015.
The research company, in its "Global 3DTV Forecast" looked at 53 countries and said take up in the Asia-Pacific region and in Western Europe would "gain steam" in the next couple of years, increasingly making up a larger portion of a market that "will be far from mature by 2015."
Digital cable is expected to outpace IPTV uptake of 3D, Informa said, accounting for some 47 percent of active 3D households by 2015, up from the current 38 percent.
DTH homes will see higher 3D TV penetration (3.7 percent by 2015) than other platforms because DTH operators--who have been promoting 3D TV more aggressively--need it to help differentiate themselves from other platforms with advanced TV services to counter the triple-play bundles and true VoD offered by cable and IPTV operators.
IPTV will be some way behind cable and DTH in its active 3D TV household numbers, with a forecast of 3 million by end-2015. The U.S. will provide 766,000 of this total, followed by France (426,000) and Japan (418,000).
For more:
- see this release
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