Despite a near quadrupling in subscribers in 2007, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is not stealing customers from satellite television in the Americas region — at least for now, according to iSuppli Corp.

The number of IPTV subscribers in North and South America expanded to 1.8 million in 2007, up 257.1 per cent from 501,000 in 2006.

The vast majority of those subscribers were in the North American region, specifically in the United States. US telcos and leading IPTV providers Verizon and AT&T collectively reached 1.2 million subscribers at the end of the fourth quarter of 2007, up 294.9 per cent from 296,000 in the fourth quarter of 2006. AT&T’s U-Verse service accounted for 231,000 of those subscribers, while Verizon had 943,000.

Satellite subscribers in North and South America rose to 39.5 million in 2007, up from 36.3 million in 2006. North America’s leading satellite television providers, DirecTV and EchoStar, added 2.1 million subscribers during the same period.

“The early hypothesis was that IPTV subscribers would ‘come out of the hide’ of the satellite companies in North America,” said Pamela Tufegdzic, multimedia analyst at iSuppli. “However, over the past four quarters, satellite subscriber numbers have continued to grow in the region. The initial results show that IPTV subscribers in the United States still are mostly net additions to the pay-television market.”

But while satellite television has shrugged off the impact of IPTV so far, the industry is likely to face increasing challenges in 2008 and beyond, iSuppli believes.
“Satellite providers are in a bit of a squeeze,” Tufegdzic said. “These companies previously partnered with the telcos to offer television service to compete with the bundled voice and video offerings from the cable providers. As they try to expand into IPTV, the satellite providers now find that a significant portion of their subscriber base of television subscribers is owned by the telcos.”

Global IPTV subscribers are expected to rise to 82.6 million in 2011, up from slightly less than 10 million in 2007, according to iSuppli.

< a href="http:// www.isuppli.com "target=_blank Internet Protocol Television