Market research firm, Strategy Analytics says Verizon's FiOS (News - Alert) TV customers may exceed five million in 2012, as the telecom giant has intensified its effort to make deeper inroads into American Pay-TV market.

If Verizon (News - Alert) does reach that number then the wireless operator will represent a 5 percent market share in the U.S. FiOS pay-TV market.

In the first quarter of 2012, the mobile giant added a total of 104,000 broadband subscribers, reaching almost 8.8 million in the quarter. It also added 108,000 new FiOS TV customers, ending the quarter with a total of 4.35 million subscribers.

“Not only did subscriber numbers increase, but Average Revenue per User (ARPU) has grown as well, following the trend of customers shifting from DSL to FiOS Fiberservice,” said the researcher.

What is true is Verizon has continued to show impressive growth both in Pay -TV and Broadband businesses and according to the analysts the outlook for the remainder of 2012 is promising.

For Verizon, FiOS business accounted of more than 63 percent of its consumer wireline revenues in Q1 2012. 

Instead of rolling out the service in wider areas, the Telco is likely to persuade its existing customers to switch to FiOS Broadband and TV services.

Verizon is benefiting more than any other operator in the U.S., as businesses and households started upgrading to high speed broadband services.

Over half of FiOS customers are taking Broadband packages with speeds higher than the basic package, as well as bundling into triple play packages. That’s why analysts say this will lead to increasing blended ARPU for Verizon.

“Verizon has done an exceptional job of increasing its penetration in homes passed reaching 32.3 percent in the first quarter. Over the coming months, the company is going to shift from an expansion strategy to work even harder on converting customers in its existing footprint to FiOS Broadband and TV services,” said Jason Blackwell, Director of Service Provider Strategies (SPS) at Strategy Analytics (News - Alert).