3:40 PM -- Europe, with the French service providers showing the way, has been leading the global IPTV market for years -– but that's about to change, according to new market projections from Pyramid Research .

According to a new Research in Focus: IPTV Report, Europe (Western, Central and Eastern) accounted for 45 percent of the world's 46.2 million IPTV subscribers at the end of 2010, while Asia/Pacific accounted for 35 percent.

However, by the end of 2015 there are set to be nearly 132 million IPTV subscribers worldwide, of which 51 percent will be in Asia/Pacific and 29 percent in Europe. That shift is due to ongoing growth in some large and key markets, particularly China, which is set to overtake France as the largest single IPTV market during the course of 2011. (See Pyramid: IPTV Subs to Near 132M by 2015.)

What the report also notes, though, is that North America generated the most IPTV revenues of any region in 2010 and will still lead the revenue charts in 2015, even though it will account for just 15 percent of the world's IPTV subscribers by that year.

That's because the average revenue per subscription (ARPS) in North America is so much higher than in any other region of the world. According to Pyramid's projections, the IPTV ARPS figure for the U.S. market in 2015 will be about eight times that of China's.

You can find out more about the development of the global IPTV market, and about the future of pay-TV technologies, by hooking up with Pyramid and Heavy Reading analysts at the IP&TV World Forum in London March 22-24. (See Meet Pyramid & HR at IP&TV World Forum .)

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading