Tipping point for global digital TV

By the end of 2011, just under half of the world’s TV households were able to receive digital signals, according to a new study by Digital TV Research.

The analyst’s Digital TV World Databook revealed that penetration had climbed from 23.5 percent at the end of 2007 to 48.5 percent by the end of 2011, with around 370 million digital homes added in the period.

This represented an average of 93 million more digital homes each year, taking the digital TV household total for the 80 countries covered in the report to 675 million.

In terms of platforms, digital cable was present in 235 million homes, up by 38 million on 2010; 154 million pay digital DTH homes (up 15 million); 109 million free-to-air (FTA) digital DTH; 51 million pay IPTV (up 16 million); DTT FTA with 17 million (up 20 million); and pay DTT generating a further 9.5 million.

The Asia Pacific region accounted for 274 million out of the 370 million digital TV households with 194 million added between 2007 and 2011.

Not surprisingly China became the largest digital TV household nation in 2010, rising to 149 million digital TV homes (22 percent of the world’s total) by the end of 2011.