The number of subscribers to the SES HD+ service in Germany exceeded two million for the first time in 2016. The year ended with the number of subscribers using HD+ on satellite TV reaching 2,111,862. For the same time a year earlier the number of subscribers was 1,840,800, which is a 15% increase year-on-year.
In addition to the satellite paying subscribers, there are currently 850,000 households using the free HD+ test phase. Taking these into account, the total number of HD+ subscribers is just under three million.
Wilfried Urner, the Chairman of the Management Board of HD+ explained that more Germans are willing to pay for a better TV experience and HD+ is benefiting from this trend.
The German digital terrestrial network will be migrating from DVB-T to the new DVB-T2 standard on 29th March 2017. DVB-T2 will also use a new encoding standard, HEVC, and hence, either way, DVB-T households will need to change their hardware and that may mean some will switch to satellite while others will switch to a combination of HD+ and DVB-T2
The combination provides 300 channels with more than 50 in HD, with 23 only via satellite in HD+. The new DVB-T2 service will offer up to 40 channels although this is a fee-paying service.
