ABI Research: Telco TV revenue up in Q3 2010

Telcos may continue to trail cable in terms of video subscribers for years to come, but they are making progress, reports ABI Research in its quarterly "Pay-TV ARPU and Revenues Market Data" report.

In Q3 2010, ABI Research's latest figures illustrated that telco TV service revenue increased about nine percent over Q3 09 to $55 billion.

Jason Blackwell, digital home practice director at ABI Research, said what drove the revenue increase were "strong subscriber net additions and an increase in ARPU."

One region that's been a consistent contributor to global telco TV growth is Western Europe where service penetration is currently very high. However, ABI expects that the region's strong telco TV penetration will lead to a decline in new subscriber additions. 

And while pay-TV ARPU rose in Q3, some of the U.S.-based cable operators reported revenue losses in Q3. Currently, the North American telco TV market has been led by the likes of AT&T (NYSE: T) (u-Verse), Bell Canada (NYSE: BCE) (Fibe TV) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) (FiOS TV), which all reported gains in TV subscribership in Q3.

Khin Sandi Lynn,  andABI research associate, said "market saturation and competition from other, newer pay-TV services resulted in customer losses for some cable operators in North America."

For more:
- see the release

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