The number of connected TVs worldwide will reach 876 million by 2020 – up from 105 million in 2010 and 415 million at end-2015, says Digital TV Research.
In percentage terms, the 876 million sets will represent 29.9% of the total global TV sets, compared to 4.5% in 2010 and 15.5% in 2015. South Korea (55%) will have the highest proportion by 2020, while India (11.4%) will have the least. By numbers, the USA will have 184 million connected TVs, up from 112 million in 2014. China, in second place, will have 114 million (up from 21 million).
China will supply most of the 538 million connected TVs between 2015 and 2020: 123 million, followed by 72 million in the USA, 30 million in Brazil, 29 million in India and 26 million in Japan. APAC will become the largest connected TV region in 2017.
Simon Murray, principal analyst at DTVR, said, “…[T]he gulf between rich and poor nations is not going to be breached as rapidly as we previously thought. Therefore, connected TV set forecasts for most developing countries, especially China and India, are a lot lower”.
Murray added that retail OTT devices, such as Chromecast and the Apple TV, have made “more of a splash” than previously expected. In total, there will be 207 million of these devices by 2020 (42 million in the USA and 39 million in China). In 2010, there were only 4 million. DTVR predicted that there would be 37 million at end-2015, but has revised the forecast to 58 million.
Installed smart TV sets overtook game consoles in 2013. These models will represent 36% of connected TVs (320 million) in 2020. 56 million will be in the USA and 64 million in China.
By end-2015, the number of smart TV sets will reach 150 million: 5.6% of total TV sets, up from 1.3% in 2010, and expected to grow to 10.9% by 2020. The proportion will be above 10% in 34 countries.
Murray warned, “In the last edition, we expected that ninth-generation games consoles would launch in 2016 or 2017. However, 2019 now seems more likely. This means that games consoles will have a lower impact on connected TV. There is also much lower confidence in connected Blu-ray players continuing to make more of an impact on the sector”.
DTVR expects 169 million connected games consoles by 2020, up from 107 million in 2014. The USA will provide 43 million of the 2020 total, followed by Japan (17 million) and China (16 million).
