TORONTO – By the end of this year, Canadian cable companies will have 24% of all residential telephone subscribers (up from 19% at the end of 2007), rising to 34% the end of 2010, says research firm Convergence Consulting Group in its ongoing The Battle for the North American Couch Potato series of reports. The latest was released this week.
But, on the other side of the competitive coin, the report also predicts that telcos will have just 2% of TV subs, barely rising by the end of 2010 to 4%. Canadian telcos residential telephone line loss for 2007 was 7%; and the company forecasts another 7% drop for 2008 as well.
Cable continues to add a significant amount of telephone subs due to high customer overlap, bundled price and convenience, says the report.
Cable has, on average, 60% of their residential TV customers taking Internet with them, whereas telcos have on average 35% of their residential telephone customers taking DSL Internet access with them.
Cable telephone has also been a key growth driver for Cable Internet and TV subscriber gains.
Cable added 100,000 new television subscribers in both 2006 and 2007 and with Bell’s IPTV plans on ice and satellite subscriber gains slowing (the company says satellite will have the same TV market share in 2010 as 2007) cable will continue to add customers, albeit less than 2006/2007, through 2010. “We forecast overall TV subscriber revenue will grow 8% in 2008 (9% in 2007),” reads the report.
PVR and HD penetration of TV subs reached 9% &and 13% respectively at the end of ’07, but Convergence says those figures will be at 28% and 38% by the end of 2010, with video on demand revenue that year double what it was in ‘07.
Cable also continues to add significantly more residential broadband subscribers per year than its telco competitors, and had 57% market share at the end of 2007.
“In general cable offers more speed for the price than the telcos,” says the report. “Overall residential broadband subscriber additions are in decline; 2007 saw 100,000 less residential broadband subs added than 2006. We forecast overall residential broadband revenue will grow 14% in 2008 (16% in 2007).”
