Berlin 14 November 2019: The European Union cable industry continues to grow despite convergence and disruption in the sector, with total cable revenues increasing by 3% to €24 billion in 2018, according to IHS statistics released today at Cable Congress 2019 in Berlin, the annual conference organised by the industry’s trade association, Cable Europe.

 

Sector revenue increased year-on-year, and by a bigger margin than in 2017. Annual cable revenues increased by 3% to €24 billion, with revenues for TV and Internet growing by 4% and 3.6%, respectively. Telephony, meanwhile, saw another revenue decline in 2018, of 1.9%, as the service continues to command less value in the modern multiplay bundle.

 

Underpinning this revenue growth is cable operators’ ability to increase the value of their customer relationships – total blended average revenue per user (ARPU) increased to €30.4 in 2018, up from €29.8 the previous year.

 

For cable operators, in addition to digital services, growth from a revenue-generating-units (RGUs) point of view is coming from Internet and telephony. Cable Internet subscriptions increased by 2.5% to €38 million, while telephony increased by 1.3% to €28.6 million. These increases helped to boost total cable RGUs by 0.8% to €121.7 million.

 

TV still accounts for the largest share of cable revenues, though it has fallen from 50% in 2013 to 46% in 2018. DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 deployments have put Internet on the path to potentially becoming the sector’s biggest revenue generator, with its share of the total cable pie increasing to 35% in 2018.

 

“This latest edition of the Cable Yearbook highlights the incredible transformation that the sector is experiencing,” said Caroline van Weede, Managing Director of Cable Europe. “This is why operators remain alert, innovating and investing in the future. Stay tuned, the sector has still a lot to give.”

 

For more information please contact:

 

Virginia Lee

 

Cable Europe

 

 

+32 2 556 21 02