UK Europe’s hub for connected devices, with OTT access up 114%

Editor ©RapidTVNews | 28-06-2012


The UK is Western Europe's leading market for connected devices, with an estimated 13.8 million devices receiving over-the-top (OTT) video content in 2011, a 114.1% year-on-year increase.

The new SNL Kagan report revealed that UK households has on average 0.51 connected devices per home, up from 0.24 in 2010. These devices include game consoles, smart TVs and Blu-ray players, standalone set-top boxes, PCs networked to TVs and tablets.

Games consoles were the most heavily adopted connected device type in the UK of which 4.8 million received OTT content at end 2011. Consoles were followed by tablets at 3.1 million; three million PC media servers; 2.6 million connected TV/Blu-ray players; and 172,000 standalone set-top boxes.

Looking forward, the analyst predicts that the UK connected device population will nearly double in 2012 to 24.0 million before growing to 122.7 million by the end of 2017, a 44.0% 2011-2017 compound annual growth rate. By 2017, SNL Kagan estimates there will be an average of 4.45 connected devices for each U.K. home, the highest among the five major markets of Western Europe. By 2017, SNL Kagan projects tablets and connected TVs will make up a substantial portion of the market as television sets with Internet capabilities become the norm. At the same time it says that tablets will account for 48.1% of all active connected devices in the UK, surpassing smart TVs and game consoles in 2012 thanks to iPad and Android growth plus adoption of Amazon's Kindle Fire.