Increased Internet Share of Broadcast Distribution in Sweden

Television online increasing while the terrestrial and satellite on steady decrease

Traditional television is distributed to consumers through various distribution platforms such as cable, satellite and terrestrial networks, and broadband via fiber, fiber LAN and xDSL. In June 2016 there were 5.2 million digital and analog pay-TV subscriptions in Sweden. Of this there were 2.8 million digital television subscriptions, which was an increase of 2 percent a year. Broadband expansion also affects how we receive traditional linear television. The number of subscriptions for IPTV continued to increase during the first half writes the Telecom Authority (PTS) in its report.


The number of IPTV subscriptions totaled 1.0 million, an increase of 11 percent. The reason that IPTV subscriptions increased is due to IPTV via fiber growth. The number of subscriptions for IPTV via fiber was 793,000 and there is an increase of 21 percent. IPTV via fiber is now for the first time the major digital distribution platform. The number of subscriptions to TV via xDSL continued to decrease and amounted to 220.000, which is a decrease of 14 percent.

PTS estimates that the number of households that have one or more subscriptions to cable TV services (excluding SMATV) was approximately 3.1 million, which is as many as the previous year.

There were 502.000 pay-TV subscriptions in the digital terrestrial network. There is a decrease of 8 percent, the largest annual decline in subscriptions via the terrestrial network. Since 2008, the number of pay-TV subscriptions in the terrestrial network declined each year. In the terrestrial network is both traditional television and pay-television and also the so-called "free television".

The households that receive only free television via the digital terrestrial network are not included in the statistics. Since the free-TV viewers do not subscribe agreements to take part of the service so it is unclear exactly how many households that receive free TV. According to a survey commissioned by PTS barely 7 percent of households free TV as the only means of receiving television in its permanent residents, or about 290,000 households. Compared to surveys conducted in 2012, 2013 and 2014, this is a decrease of about one percentage point.

The number of subscriptions for television via satellite continues to decrease and amounted to just 596.000 in June 2016. This is a decrease of 3 percent in a year.

There were a total of 14.5 million mobile subscriptions in Sweden, 30 June 2016. This is an increase of 1% compared with the same date in 2015. The number of subscriptions with over 1 Gbyte of data (mostly smartphones) has increased by 9% to 7.3 million.

Data traffic in mobile networks continues to increase. The amount of data transferred increased to 294,000 terabyte (Tbyte) during the first half of 2016 and increased by 31%. The rate of increase has been in previous years has been over 30%.

There were 6.8 million subscriptions had used the services of the 4G network, which is an increase of 34 percent.3 It represents more than 70 per cent of all subscriptions where the data is included. In the current situation is used only 4G mobile data.

Read the full report with summary in English
Swedish Telecommunications Market first half of 2016

Facts: 
The rapid growth of mobile broadband is mainly due to becoming, thanks to smartphones, a distribution platform for video, including television. Radio and music services also represent a growing share, but is significantly smaller capacity consuming. In Sweden online television services are dominated by SVT the public service broadcaster, and Netflix which takes the video space while the audio side is dominated by the Swedish public radio and Spotify.

Also read
Mobile Broadband the Fastest Growing ICT in Human History