22.5 million homes will tune into 3D by 2015

Over 20 million TV homes will be watching 3DTV within five years, according to TBIvision publisher Informa Telecoms & Media.

Backed by content owners, broadcasters and pay TV platforms, 3D will be in 1.6% of all homes by 2015. “However, the market will still be very immature by 2015, so significant growth opportunities exist beyond this date,” Informa Telecoms & Media principal analyst Simon Murray told TBIvision.

North America will continue to lead the way in terms of number of 3DTV homes with 9.2 million by 2015. Western Europe will be the second largest region with 6.8 million 3DTV homes and Asia Pacific third with 4.6 million.

Despite the prediction that it will take off, the absence of a glasses-free system of watching 3D TV will constrain growth.

“We believe that 3DTV will take off, but we also believe that 3D TV viewing will be limited until the technology has progressed sufficiently to remove the viewer’s need to wear glasses – which we estimate will be beyond our forecast period,” Murray said.

Other limiting factors for 3DTV in the home include a lack of content, high production costs, scarcity of channels, bandwidth constraints and the high cost of 3D sets.

Informa Telecoms & Media analysts will host an interactive discussion about their 3D forecasts and the challenges and opportunities 3D presents the TV industry – to tune into the free webinar register here