December 8, 2008 - Several Asian IPTV operators have outlined their their plans for developing their respective services and released latest subscriber numbers at the IPTV World Forum Asia 08 event, which took place last week in Singapore. Speaking at the event, Yi Yi Lu, Marketing Director at Shanghai Telecom, said that her company had recorded 700,000 IPTV subscribers by the end of November, compared to around 510,000 at the beginning of August. Meanwhile, Ching Min Cheng, Managing Director, northern business unit, multimedia department at Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom, said that it will have 700,000 IPTV subscribers by the end of this year and that this total will rise to 1.2mn by the end of 2009. The executive added that many of the telco's subscribers still pay for analogue cable to gain access to premium channels like HBO and ESPN. Several content deals are also on the cards in the region, according to Informa Telecoms & Media, with Ian Chin, Vice President of new project development at China Telecom and Shanghai Media Group's joint IPTV service BesTV, saying that the service is about to secure a video on demand deal with US studio Warner Bros, adding to the VOD deal already in place with Sony. Mr. Chin added that, as with Chunghwa Telecom, it is finding that its subscribers also receive a cable service to access certain premium channels.

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