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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