Japan IPTV Market Outlook

Recently in Japan, IPTV service is being adopted with an expectation that its development will be very rapid. Three companies are providing the (narrow sense) IPTV services in Japan; Hikari TV from NTT Plara, Hikari One TV from KDDI and BBTV from BB Cable Corporation. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, the number of subscribers was 172,000 as of March 2007.

However the specifications of STB (settop box), which is the receiver of IPTV signals, are developed independently by the manufacturers and consequently a question regarding the compatibility is being raised. As a result, measures for standardization are being taken internationally at ITU. In Japan, the same movement is found in the IPTV Forum.

IPTV stands for Internet Protocol TV, but its definition differs slightly depending on the categorization system. ROA Group defines the IPTV service as "a service that provides, on a TV set, using the settop box, a content that is delivered through a closed IP network." Therefore, IPTV is different from CATV, which is based on the cable network and Internet TV that uses an open IP network.

Japan is an entry level market with estimated 400,000 IPTV subscribers in 2008, but the fullfledged use of the IPTV service will expand to the major cities across the country from 2009 and increase sharply in 2010. It is estimated that the average growth rate will reach 65% from 2006 to 2012, and in 2012 the number of subscribers is expected to exceed 3 million, which is approximately 10% of FTTH subscribers, and the penetration rate of IPTV is expected to be 6%.