April 10, 2018

Ninety-five million additional pay-TV subscribers are set to be added between 2017 and 2023 to take the global total to 1.1 billion, according to Digital TV Research. Based on forecasts for 138 countries, the number of pay-TV subscribers passed 1 billion in 2017.

The Global Pay TV Subscriber Forecasts report concludes that IPTV will win most of the additional subscribers – or 81 million. IPTV will overtake pay satellite TV subs in 2018.

“Some operators, such as Telefónica in Spain, are encouraging subscribers to convert to IPTV from other platforms,” advised Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research. “IPTV/broadband subs are more lucrative than satellite TV ones.”

Satellite TV will grow by 31 million subs and pay DTT by 10 million. Digital cable TV will add at 61 million subs between 2017 and 2023, but analogue cable TV will lose 88 million subs – meaning a net loss for cable.

There were still 90 million analogue cable TV subscribers by end-2017. Although this figure is down from 335 million in 2010, it still represents a major hurdle for pay-TV operators to convert.

It is not all gloom as there will be 525 million cable TV subs ……

Read more on : Analyst: Global pay-TV to gain 95m subs

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