Nearly 20% of all TVs shipped in 2010 featured connected TV capabilities, according to the DisplaySearch Q1’11 Quarterly TV Design and Features Report, the connected TV category is forecast to grow to over 123 million shipments in 2014 (at a 30% compound annual growth rate). Emerging markets will also play a major role in this growth, with Eastern Europe forecast to grow from 2.5 million connected TVs shipped in 2010 to over 10 million in 2014. In addition, DisplaySearch findings indicate that 33% of flat panel TVs sold in China in 2013 will have internet capability.

Mobile markets in Asia continued experiencing strong growth during 2010, according to a new Research and Markets report.  A total of more than 2.6 billion mobile subscribers in early 2011 and an average annual growth of over 25% (excluding the most highly penetrated markets) have combined to see the Asia region have the fastest growing telecommunications markets in the world. With difficult economic conditions and some markets saturating it is not surprising that the growth rate has slowed somewhat over the last year or so.

While mounting mobile penetration and rapid adoption of mobile broadband continue to boost total service revenue for wireless operators, the dilution of Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) due to multi-SIMs has become a cause for concern, according to ABI Research’s latest published “Mobile Subscriber Usage and Traffic Market Data.”

Singapore, February 23, 2011--According to the most recent market data from ABI Research, there were more than 704 million pay-TV subscribers globally at the end of 2010, increased more than 56 million subscribers from 2009.  The Asia-Pacific region, which owns 57% of global pay-TV subscriptions, remains the largest pay-TV market in the world.

“The growth rate is good in all pay-TV platforms except cable TV,” notes practice director Jason Blackwell. “High cable penetration in regions such as North America and Western Europe, and the increasing popularity of online video services, have resulted in slow growth in worldwide cable TV markets.”

Television manufacturers are viewing 3D developments as the next big thing for the 3D TV industry, and expect it to boost sales and interest as much as color TVs did to black and white entertainment decades ago. They have already announced several 3D TV ready models, with many more to come in 2011. There is now talk of 3D broadcast channels in America, Europe and Asia for the coming years.

There has been solid growth in the Earth Observation (EO) market in the past few years due to a strengthening of demand for civil government and military EO satellites and associated data. However, this reliance on government and military organizations distorts true market economics, as only a few large users such as the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) provide the majority of revenues for U.S.-based operators according to NSR.

Based on information from 875 IPTV Operators, where the total number of IPTV Operators have increased by 22 since Q2/2010, the rate of growth of global IPTVOperators continues at a rate of over 10 new Operators per quarter, with about 50% of those in North America.

Year on year growth rates of 6.7% have taken broadband subscription to 508,761,837 in the third quarter of 2010, according to figures prepared by Point Topic (http://www.point-topic.com) and announced today by the Broadband Forum in its Global Broadband and IPTV Industry Update. Over 14.3 million lines were added in the third quarter alone, representing 2.88% growth over the previous quarter.

It seems like a natural progression to bring the Internet to every possible consumer electronics device available today, and the television set is no exception. Not to be left behind, many a DTH provider has provisioned Ethernet ports in the next generation of STBs, although the software and strategy to provide enhanced services may still be a few years away. As expected, North America and Western Europe are leading this market as viewers in these regions become more particular about what content they want as well as where and when they want it.

Latest figures from ABI Research indicates that there are currently more than 500 3G network commitments, and over 300 WiMAX and LTE announcements worldwide. This equates to more than two billion of the world’s population being covered by high-speed data networks. The demand for speedy data networks continues to rise across the globe.