A recent report from research firm Yankee Group (News - Alert) indicates that the number of American IPTV subscribers may reach 97 million by 2011. That’s up from just 1.4 million last year. The figures represents a total of all projected subscribers in areas where IPTV (News - Alert) is currently available or expected to be available within the next three years.

 

Also, an Infonetics Research report indicates that the IPTV/SDV market will grow to $9.8 billion worldwide by 2011. That number anticipates double-digit growth over the course of the next three years.

 

“With each quarter, the battle for video subscribers gets more heated,” said Infonetics IPTV directing analyst Jeff Heynen. “Buoyed by the success of rollouts by Orange, Free, Neuf, Fastweb, PCCW (News - Alert), Telefonica and China Telecom, IPTV service providers continue to build out headends and spend on IP set-top boxes to aggressively court video subscribers. Meanwhile, North American cable MSOs, such as Comcast (News - Alert) and Cablevision, are leading the charge in switched digital video, to free up bandwidth and offer more HD content to their subscribers.”

 

The rise in IPTV subscription, according to Yankee Group, will coincide with a drop in cable subscriptions—from 68.5 million in 2007 to 61.2 million in 2011. Satellite provider subscriptions are expected to be flat, holding at 30.5 million.

 

Infonetics’ report revealed that IPTV/SDV equipment revenue reached $1.1 billion last year, and that worldwide revenue from IPTV services may grow ten-fold by 2011. Motorola (News - Alert) currently leads the IP set-top box market, while Microsoft leads the middleware and content delivery platform market, and UTStarcom leads the integrated digital headend platform market.