European broadband users are signing up for IPTV services in the hundreds of thousands each quarter, making Europe the biggest and fastest growing telco TV region in the world.

    Financial reports from the past few days show that incumbent carriers are growing their TV over DSL subscriber numbers at a furious pace, with France Telecom SA (NYSE: FTE - message board) leading the way.

    The French national carrier had 975,000 IPTV subscribers in France at the end of its third quarter, an increase of 138,000 (about 16 percent) from the 837,000 it had at the end of its second quarter, and more than double compared with a year ago.

    France Telecomhad 6.9 million DSL subscribers as of September 30, so almost one in seven of its broadband customers has signed up for IPTV. It also has an additional 42,000 IPTV customers in other territories, most of which are in Poland (believed to be around 23,000) and Spain, according to the carrier.

    FT'ssuccess is one of the reasons why France is far and away the single biggest IPTV market in the world. According to statistics compiled by research house Point Topic Ltd. for the DSL Forum , there were 8.23 million IPTV subscribers in the world at the end of June this year, of which nearly 5 million were in Europe, including 2.55 million in France.

    In addition to France Telecom, Iliad (Euronext: ILD - message board) and Neuf Cegetel Group (Euronext: NEUF - message board) are the other main players in France. At the end of June, Iliad had around 1 million customers using its TV over broadband services, and Neuf Cegetel had nearly 600,000 IPTV customers, while Telecom Italia SpA (NYSE: TI - message board)'s Alice France had around 60,000.

    That figure for France made it the only country with more than 1 million IPTV subscribers as of June 30, with Hong Kong the second biggest single market with 938,000 telco TV subscribers at that time, and the U.S. just behind in third with 937,118.

    Of the top10 IPTV markets globally, five are in Europe, with the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, and Germany joining France.

    Other recent IPTVsubscriber updates from Europe include:

    Telia Sonera AB (Nasdaq: TLSN - message board) boosted its IPTV base by about 76,000 to 276,000 during its third quarter. In Sweden it now has 216,000 IPTV subscribers, an increase of 58,000 over the second quarter. Its remaining telco TV users are in Estonia and Lithuania, where the combined total now stands at 50,000, up about 10,000 in the three months to the end of September.

    Dutch incumbent KPN Telecom NV (NYSE: KPN - message board) is having a mixed time with its TV services. Its digital terrestrial TV offer, launched in 2004 to rival the country's cable operators, is growing well, and the carrier's total TV service subscriber base now stands at 414,000 at the end of the third quarter, up 23 percent sequentially. Of that total, though, only a few tens of thousands are thought to be IPTV customers, though the carrier does not officially split out its TV numbers.

    Some of Europe's other main IPTV players are due to report their latest figures in the coming days. Telefónica SA (NYSE: TEF - message board), which had more than 450,000 IPTV customers at the end of June, reports its third quarter results on November 12, while Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT - message board), which is on a crusade to achieve 200,000 IPTV customers by the end of the year, presents its third quarter results on November 8.

    Swisscom AG (NYSE: SCM - message board), which had 50,000 IPTV users at the end of June makes its latest earnings presentation on November 7, Belgacom SA (Euronext: BELG - message board), which had 190,000 IPTV customers at the end of June, reports its third quarter on November 9, while BT Group plc (NYSE: BT - message board; London: BTA), which is yet to provide official numbers for its BT Vision service, reports its fiscal second quarter on November 8.