• by Wayne Friedman , July 7, 2014

For pay TV providers and Ultra HDTV manufacturers, there will continue to be good revenue news in future years.
Worldwide pay TV services grew 1.4% in the first quarter of 2014 among the 100 pay TV companies globally, according to informitv’s Multiscreen Index.

Those companies, representing over 30 countries and 330 million subscribing homes worldwide, gained 4.17 million video customers over the first three months of the year and 17.43 million year-on-year -- which was a 5.2% increase over the same period the year before.  

Big growing territories are Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Two-thirds of services reported net subscriber gains. The report does not include what is believed to be substantial growth in China.

At the same time, high-quality HDTVs --- Ultra HDTV, or 4K TVs -- will grow to represent 26.6% of all TV shipped in three years, according to Digitimes Research. The report believes that from 2013 to 2017, the number of UHDTV will grow from 1.5 million units to 68.2 million.

The report says while the video industry is not ideal for Ultra-HD TV -- given overall conversion by global TV networks from HDTV transmission -- manufacturers will benefit from more blu-ray disc for UHDTVs, as well as more user-generated content.

Major manufacturers such as Samsung and Sony may be pushed to lower pricing on UHDTV sets faster than for previous TV innovation sale periods, according to the study .