IPTV is growing strongly, with 2.6 million new subscribers added...

IPTV is growing strongly, with 2.6 million new subscribers added worldwide in Q1, U.K. analyst Point Topic said. The service now accounts for 7.7 percent of total broadband lines, it said. Western Europe is still the key IPTV region, with more than 16 million subscribers on March 31, over half in France alone, it said. The U.S. is the second-biggest market, led by Verizon and AT&T, the analyst said. China added 630,000 new subscribers in the first quarter of this year and is the strongest IPTV performer, it said. There’s a huge gap between leaders France, the U.S. and China and the rest of the world in terms of quarterly growth rates, it said. The top IPTV operators are China Telecom, Free, Verizon, Orange-France, AT&T, SFR (France), Korea Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, NTT Communications and PCCW, Point Topic said. The statistics show “the potential is there,” especially if the offer and price are right, it said. The number of broadband subscribers globally is also rising. There were nearly 485 million subscribers as of March 31, up 3.2 percent from the previous quarter, it said. DSL is still the most popular broadband technology, with around 312 million lines, followed by cable, with around 98 million lines, and fiber, at over 62 million lines, it said. China continues to have the largest DSL market, with the U.S. second, it said. North America leads in cable users, followed by Western Europe, it said. Fiber is most popular in Asia, with Asia Pacific and East Asia controlling nearly 83 percent of the global market, Point Topic said. China has the largest fiber market in the world, it said. The top ten countries in total broadband subscribers in Q1 were China, the U.S., Germany, India, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, the U.K., Spain and France, it said.