A new report from Media Partners Asia forecasts that digital TV subscriptions will account for 70% of the total by 2014 and 82% by 2020, up from just 34% by the end of 2009, or 116 million.

The report, Asia Pacific Pay-TV & Broadband Markets 2010, says that in 2009, Asia's pay-tv sector added 26.6 million new subscribers to reach 340 million, region-wide penetration of 46% and up 9%. India and China accounted for a staggering 75% of the growth. But growth in sales was down, at 8.6% to US$32 billion, compared with 15% growth in 2008. Subscription revenues were more buoyant, up 10% compared with ad sales, which rose just 3%. Pay-TV revenues are expected to reach US$54 billion by 2014 and US$75 billion by 2020. Of that, digital pay-TV subscriptions will contribute US$35 billion and US$53 billion respectively. By 2014, 446 million homes (55% penetration) in the region are forecast to have pay-TV, rising to 513 million (58%) by 2020. Digital subs are forecast to rise to 70% and 82% respectively, while HD pay-TV is forecast to reach 37 million homes by 2014 and 75 million by 2020. Currently, HD subscriptions account for just 7 million pay-TV homes. PVR adoption has even further to go – PVRs are in just 2.4 million of Asia's pay-TV homes, forecast to rise to 10 million by 2014 and 19 million by 2020. Distributed via M2 Communications - http://www.m2.com