It’s no secret that illegal IPTV services make a fortune for the hackers who operate them. A new study allows us to have a more precise overview: in 2021, the industry brought in no less than a billion euros, just with subscriptions. On the other hand, the latter caused the beneficiaries to lose 3.2 billion euros.
In recent years, the market for IPTV services has grown enormously, pushing many Internet users to abandon their traditional TV subscription for a less expensive alternative. Of course, not all IPTV offers are legal, which does not prevent pirate subscriptions from gaining popularity over time. The figures do not lie: in 2021, the industry brought in 1.06 billion euros to pirates.
According to the Audiovisual Alliance once morest Piracy (APAA), which commissioned the study, this is even slightly more than the year 2020, which saw revenue of 941.7 million euros. On average, European Internet users thus spend €5 per month to access these illegal IPTV services. Unsurprisingly, it is the youngest who regularly use it, with 11.8% being between 16 and 24 years old.
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“The differences are explained not only by the perception towards intellectual property and piracy, but also by other factors such as average income, Internet use and listening habits of the television, which differ significantly between age groups”, says the study. This is not the only disparity observed: the popularity of IPTV services is not the same depending on the country.
The UK leads with 3 million daily users. France, for its part, is not far behind with 2.4 million users. Proportionally, on the other hand, it is the Netherlands which take first place with 8.2% of the population adept at pirate IPTV. The Eastern countries, on the other hand, are much less fond of it. Romania and Poland, for example, have only 0.8% and 1.5% regular users respectively.
In total, the APAA estimates that pirate IPTV services caused rights holders to lose 3.2 billion euros in 2021.
Source : WHAT
