• by Wayne Friedman , November 26, 2013

Worldwide triple-play subscriptions -- those consumers who buy cable TV, landline phone and broadband from one company -- will continue to rise in the next five years.

Research says triple-play subscriptions will reach 333 million by 2018 -- from 300 million in 2008 and 239 million in 2012, according to the Dublin, Ireland-based Research & Markets.

About 21% of the world's TV homes -- 97 countries -- will subscribe to triple-play services by 2018, up from just 7% in 2012 and 2% in 2008.

Much of the rapid growth will come from China, where there will be some 115 million triple-play subscribers by 2018, versus 9 million triple-play subscriptions for the country at the end of 2012. China will amount to 34% of the total triple-play subscriptions.

Looking at 97 countries, triple-play subscription revenues will almost double to $144 billion by 2018 from $80 billion in 2012. Overall subscription revenues for all sources of pay TV, broadband and fixed-line telephony) will increase by 65% to $205 billion in 2018 from $124 billion in 2012.

The study says the number of triple-play households will overtake the stand-alone TV total by 2016, when stand-alone TV subscriptions will begin to decline.