The number of digital homes in Eastern Europe will nearly double between 2012 and 2018, bringing the total to 121 million, according to a new report from Digital TV Research. In fact, the Digital TV Eastern Europe report estimates that 13 million digital TV homes will be added in 2013 alone.

Digital TV penetration crossed the halfway mark of TV households in 2012, up from only 20% at end-2008. Fast take-up (and analog terrestrial switch-off) will push digital TV penetration to 61.4% by end-2013 and onto 97.3% by 2018. Ten of the 21 countries covered in this report will be completely digital by 2018, with Estonia the first to full conversion – in 2012.

The number of analog terrestrial TV households fell by 30 million between 2008 and 2012, leaving 37.2 million. However, only 13 million DTT homes were added, therefore the digital pay TV platforms benefitted from the analog terrestrial homes converting to digital. With nearly all of the analog terrestrial TV homes disappearing, there will be 43.3 million DTT homes (or about a third of the TV households) by 2018.