More than 150 million homes worldwide will have an HDTV set by the end of 2011, according to Informa Telecoms & Media's "HDTV: A Global Analysis" report. That is three times the number of sets worldwide at the end of 2006.
The US led the world with more than half of all HDTV households at the end of 2006, at 27.7 million. Japan was second, with 20% of global HDTV homes. China, the UK and Germany rounded out the top five with a combined 5.2 million sets.
Only about one-third of the 48.2 million sets owned worldwide at the end of 2006 had the necessary settop box or tuner to view high-definition programming.
Even with the necessary equipment, Adam Thomas of Informa said, "Once people get these sets home from the showroom, they can be disappointed with the results. First they have to subscribe to a content service and even then there can be relatively little to watch."
By 2011, 70% of HDTV homes will be viewing high-definition programming — or 105 million of the 150-million-plus homes that will own an HDTV set.