DVR Growth in Continental Europe Lags US and UK

DVR adoption in the US and the UK is strong, but the rest of Europe lags, largely due to a lack of concerted efforts from local satellite and cable operators to upsell more advanced set-top boxes, according to Forrester Research. Ad-skipping remains an extremely popular feature regardless of geography and is likely to remain the “killer app,” even as DVRs “virtualize,” Forrester says in a new report Consumers And The DVR.

Since the introduction of digital video recorders [DVRs] roughly a decade ago, TiVo (TIVO) and others have been able to expand the market to more than a fifth of all US households.

The report brings attention to a number of other interesting details. The expansion of the DVR market in the US and UK, for instance, has been significantly greater than on the European continent. Given that 55% of DVR owners say they always skip advertisements when using a DVR, it seems likely that this disparity can at least in part be attributed to the higher level of TV advertisements in the US and UK.

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Over time, Forrester says, the “DVR box” will disappear altogether from most households to be replaced by a multifunction set-top box from cable and satellite providers, virtualized DVR in a device such as Xbox 360 or PS3, or networked DVR solutions from telcos and others.

The physical DVR box, however, will still have a small place in the market as the high-end “purist” solution and the low-end European consumer play.