Australians hungry for on-demand TV services

The number of Australian consumers streaming catch-up TV in June this year almost doubled compared with the same month in 2010, according to new figures published by the Australian regulator on Tuesday.

1.1 million Australians used catch-up TV in June, up 94% on-year, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) reported, as part of its Communications Report 2010-11, covering fixed-line, mobile and Internet communications services in the country.

Overall the report shows that while mobile and Internet services are showing strong growth, consumer use of fixed lines continues to decline.

However, fixed-line networks are carrying the bulk of Australia's rapidly-growing data traffic; Australians downloaded 76% more data in the quarter ending in June 2011 than they had a year earlier, at 274,202 terabytes.

An average subscriber downloaded 25.1 gigabytes in that period, up from 16.1 gigabytes.
"While mobile Internet use is increasing, fixed-line networks continue to do the heavy lifting of the digital economy, carrying an estimated 93% of total data downloaded via the Internet," the watchdog said.

Users of mobile broadband services – delivered via dongles and datacards – grew by 39% in the year to June 2011 to 4.79 million, while the number of customers accessing the Internet via their mobile handset rose by 43% to 9.68 million over the same period.

The total number of mobile phone subscribers rose by 9% to 24.49 million, which, added to the mobile broadband users, gives a total mobile service subscriber base of 29.28 million, up 13% on-year.

There was strong growth in usage of voice over IP (VoIP) services during the year to June; by mid-year 3.8 million people were using VoIP services, up from 2.9 million in mid-2010.

"Mobile handset VoIP usage has seen the biggest growth in usage," the ACMA said. In June 2010 there was a "modest base" of just over 84,000 mobile VoIP users, which grew 226% to 274,000 a year later.

On the fixed-line side, ADSL connections grew by 7% to 4.49 million, but fixed telephone lines in service fell to 10.54 million from 10.59 million. As of June, around 2.7 million Australians did not have a fixed-line phone, compared with 2.3 million.

"Australians continued to diversify their use of communications with increasing numbers adopting multiple communication devices to suit their particular lifestyle and professional needs," ACMA chairman Chris Chapman said in the report.

His comment comes after the ACMA published research last week that indicated that consumers are increasingly turning to multiple forms of communication. As of April this year, 57% of adults used fixed-line, mobile, and broadband Internet services. A further 27% took advantage of VoIP services as well.

That means 84% of adults used three or more means of communication, up two percentage points on the year-earlier figure.

"We are also seeing Australians continuing to embrace the digital economy," Chapman concluded. "They are yet again spending more time online, participating in more online activities relating to information, banking, e-commerce and entertainment.