The number of U.S. homes with a DVR should pass the halfway mark and reach 50% of all TV homes or about 61.8 million households by the end of 2016, up from 32% or 37.9 million at the end of the third quarter of 2010, according to revised projections from Magna Global.
The firm is also predicting that the homes with VOD, a category that includes both traditional multichannel VOD offerings and over the top services, will hit 70.1 million homes, about 57% of all TV homes at the end of 2016. That is up from 51.1 million homes with VOD or about 44% of all TV homes at the end of the third quarter of 2010.
In terms of DVRs, the Magna Global On-Demand Quarterly report found that satellite providers continued to have a lead over cable operators. Magna Global estimates that DirecTV had about 8.9 million DVR homes at the end of the third quarter and Dish had some 7.6 million DVR subs. Overall, nearly half (48.9%) of satellite subscribers now have DVRs.
In contrast, Comcast had about 5.8 million DVR subs (over 25% of the company sub base) and Time Warner Cable had 4.6 million (36.5% of subscribers) at the end of the third quarter of 2010. Magna Global estimates that about 18% of Mediacom subscribers and 17.4% of Charter's subscribers have DVRs in the same period.
Magna Global is also predicting that about 98.8 million homes will have an Internet connection at the end of 2016, and that almost all of these, 97.8 million will have broadband services. About 83.6 million homes had Internet connections at the end of the third quarter of 2010, 70.9% of total homes, and 90.4% of the connected homes were accessing the Internet using a broadband service.
