IP Democracy: Telco Video Subscriber Count Now 5.7 Million

Now that Qwest has weighed in with its Q1 08 earnings results, it's time to once again take a broader look at how well the incumbent telcos are doing in the video business. Based on our analysis, the top four incumbent telcos (AT&T, Verizon, Qwest and Embarq) accelerated their growth in the multichannel video business during the quarter, adding a collective net new 651,000 video customers during the quarter, up 31% over the net adds for Q1 07 and up 19% over the net adds for Q4 07.

At the end of the quarter the telcos served a combined total of 5.7 million video customers (either through fiber-based service such as AT&T's Uverse or Verizon's FiOS or through DBS partnerships), 70% more than they served at the end of Q1 07.

Of course AT&T and Verizon dominate this market with the two major phone companies accounting for 84% of the total. But even Qwest, a distant third in the video game (and the telco game for that matter) posted healthy gains on the video front during the quarter even as it lost access lines and wireless customers and saw its broadband customer growth continue to decline.

To download data on Qwest's Q1 07 financial and operating data, or to download our spreadsheet that spells out the telcos' video customer growth history over the past several years, visit here. The data is free although registration is required.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on May 6, 2008 5:40 PM to IP Democracy