The proportion of Western European households receiving digital television (DTV) is expected to rise from 19% in 2003 to 42% by 2008, according to a report from IMS Research.
The group says a more positive outlook for the European DTV market is now beginning to emerge, despite past failures of digital terrestrial pay-TV services and the bankruptcy of many of the cable operators.
Senior analyst Ian Weightman said: “The digital terrestrial business models are being re-written, with much less reliance on pay-TV. This has led to successful launches or re-launches of DTT in the UK, parts of Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden. With other countries launching over the next twelve months, the market for televisions with integrated digital tuners and DTT set-top boxes is expected to grow strongly.”
IMS forecasts that shipments of set-top boxes and iDTVs will rise from 6.2 million in 2003 to 16.2 million by 2008.
Weightman said that the satellite sector is also looking healthy, with services such as BSkyB, Sky Italia, Canal Satellite and Premiere all showing subscriber growth. The cable market is still suffering, but the majority of refinancing has now been successfully completed and this should lead to selective growth in digital services for cable.
