New research from Informa Telecoms & Media reveals that global IPTV (Internet TV) subscriptions reached the 20 million mark at the end of 2008, which is based on figures released via 120 IPTV operators in 60 countries around the world. Hong Kong (China) leads the TOP 10 IPTV countries (market share) with 55.21%, followed by France on 30.03%, while the UK came 13th with 418,000 subscribers.

Global IPTV Top 10 Markets
Hong Kong 55.21%
France 30.03%
Taiwan 10.88%
Belgium 9.88%
Spain 6.43%
Italy 3.98%
Korea 3.90%
USA 2.35%
China 1.13%
Germany 0.74%

Certainly home based subscription IPTV services, which do not include web based players such as the BBC's iPlayer and Channel4OD, have largely failed to make significant inroads into the UK market. BT's Vision service may be one of only a precious few exceptions to that.

Orange UK had planned an IPTV service, but dropped it sighting among other things a lack of potential demand, and Tiscali's similar HomeChoice based product has seen its subscribers dwindle. We've been unable to gain any new statistics on it from Tiscali, despite several attempts to do so.



Both France and Hong Kong have benefitted from the availability of super fast next generation broadband infrastructure, while the UK is still lagging behind (Virgin Media's 50Mbps notwithstanding). Similar networks are due to surface here over the next few years, which could make IPTV more viable. Much will depend on the cost.