Asia Pacific is undergoing a digital TV boom that will see penetration increase from 29% in 2010 to 73% in 2016 – or up by nearly 400 million homes, according to a new report from Digital TV Research. Fast-growth economies, higher disposable incomes and rising populations will lead this expansion. Digital TV Asia Pacific calculated that these factors will also result in 92 million more TV households between 2010 and 2016.

Annual global IP traffic will reach the zettabyte threshold (966 exabytes or nearly 1 zettabyte) by the end of 2015 according to the latest Visual Networking Index by Cisco.   In 2015, global IP traffic will reach 966 exabytes per year or 80.5 exabytes per month.

Highlights of the report include:

Global IP traffic has increased eightfold over the past 5 years, and will increase fourfold over the next 5 years. Overall, IP traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32 percent from 2010 to 2015.

According to new market data from ABI Research, 11.3 million pay-TV subscribers were added at the end of first quarter of 2011. “By the end of 2011, the total number of pay-TV subscriptions is expected to exceed 759 million,” says practice director Jason Blackwell of ABI Research.

3D imaging, which adds depth to a 2D image, is receiving a lot of buzz and hype with an increasing number of 3D films being produced in a resurgence of interest from Hollywood studios. 3D has been popular in Hollywood at other times in the previous century, but the difference is that now, 3D viewing is possible in the home. As a result, the 3D TV set market is poised to grow dramatically in 2011—by almost 500%, according to In-Stat.

Renewed economic dynamism and multi-platform competition are fueling the consumption of pay-TV and broadband in Asia Pacific. However, this growth depends on investment in content, distribution and new technology, benefiting consumers but coming at a high cost for pay-TV channels and distributors, according to Asia Pacific Pay-TV & Broadband Markets 2011, a new report published by leading industry analysts Media Partners Asia (MPA). The result is margin pressure for pay-TV providers in some key markets, predominantly India, as well as potentially in Japan, Korea and Malaysia.

The Chinese IPTV market is the most attractive and largest IPTV market in the Asia-Pacific region. It is also the third largest IPTV market at the global level. There is a sustained growth in the demand for IPTV service in China. Further, the networks are being continuously upgraded and there is a constant innovation of services, such as single-play to Triple-play. Deployment of IPTV in various key Chinese provinces as of now is on schedule with new launches anticipated in other smaller and less developed provinces.

Global Digital Rights Management (DRM) market is projected to witness significant growth in near future due to the continuously growing media and entertainment sector according to a new report by RNCOS. Our team of experts says that, mobile content market is projected to be one of the key driving forces for the growth in the DRM industry. Telecom operators are offering premium multimedia content to compensate for their declining voice revenue per user. Besides, enterprise sector will witness significant growth and is projected to offer immense opportunities for implementing DRM.

Nearly 20% of all TVs shipped in 2010 featured connected TV capabilities, according to the DisplaySearch Q1’11 Quarterly TV Design and Features Report, the connected TV category is forecast to grow to over 123 million shipments in 2014 (at a 30% compound annual growth rate). Emerging markets will also play a major role in this growth, with Eastern Europe forecast to grow from 2.5 million connected TVs shipped in 2010 to over 10 million in 2014. In addition, DisplaySearch findings indicate that 33% of flat panel TVs sold in China in 2013 will have internet capability.

Mobile markets in Asia continued experiencing strong growth during 2010, according to a new Research and Markets report.  A total of more than 2.6 billion mobile subscribers in early 2011 and an average annual growth of over 25% (excluding the most highly penetrated markets) have combined to see the Asia region have the fastest growing telecommunications markets in the world. With difficult economic conditions and some markets saturating it is not surprising that the growth rate has slowed somewhat over the last year or so.

While mounting mobile penetration and rapid adoption of mobile broadband continue to boost total service revenue for wireless operators, the dilution of Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) due to multi-SIMs has become a cause for concern, according to ABI Research’s latest published “Mobile Subscriber Usage and Traffic Market Data.”