Zesko becomes largest digital TV operator

Both terrestrial and IPTV saw their market share grow on the Dutch digital TV market to 14.5 percent and 5.1 percent respectively, while cable and satellite continued to lose market share. The penetration of digital TV on the Dutch cable networks continued to grow, ending 2007 at 26.3 percent compared with 14.6 percent at the end of 2006.

The Dutch digital TV market’s quarterly growth is expected to reach 7 percent during the first two quarters of 2008. ‘The growth will be driven by KPN’s continued effort to win as many as Digitenne customers as possible, and a steady increase of analogue cable TV customers changing to digital TV via their cable network operator,” according to Telecompaper analyst Kamiel Albrecht. Telecompaper estimates that the Dutch digital TV market will reach the 4 million user-milestone in the beginning of the third quarter of 2008.

On the digital TV market, Zesko became the largest provider by winning 87,000 customers during the fourth quarter, to end 2007 with 834,000 digital TV customers. Satellite TV operator Canal Digitaal lost its position as largest digital TV operator but continued its quarterly growth of around 3 percent to end the year with almost 800,000 customers. UPC saw its the number of digital TV customers grow by 18,900 to 550,300 on 31 December 2007, while KPN reported the highest growth of 20 percent to reach 497,000 subscribers on 31 December 2007.