Western Europe is leading the global rush among pay TV operators towards multiscreen services with coverage up more than 80 percent over the past year, according to a survey by Dallas based market research firm Parks Associates. Currently, 66 percent of Western European pay TV subscribers have access to OTT options through a pay TV service, compared with only 36 percent in mid 2011.
“The competition from OTT services, growth in broadband penetration, and consumer adoption of connected devices all drove the rapid deployment of multiscreen services, and now operators are looking to shift focus from customer retention to monetization,” said Stuart Sikes, President of Parks Associates, which will present the findings in more detail at its Connections Europe event in Amsterdam in November.
The firm equated Western Europe’s multiscreen boom with a steep climb in deployment of residential gateways. Broadband providers will deploy 20 million high end gateways in Western Europe by the end of 2012, more than half the global 39 million total, according to Parks Associates’ research. The rest of the world will catch up somewhat over the next few years, accounting for 38 million of the 65 million gateways deployed in 2017.
This will all present pay TV operators with a big opportunity to deliver other value added services to the home beyond TV, such as home security monitoring.