Pay TV in Latin America - Economic Miracle or Another False Dawn

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011
|

A New Report from Rethink Technology Research

LONDON — Pay TV in Latin America went into overdrive during 2010, and is in for a pay TV boom lasting another four years to 2014, says a new Report from Rethink Technology Research. Subscriptions will rise from 38 million today to almost double by 2014, at 67 million. What makes this an astonishing market is that in revenue terms this has become the hottest market in the world, growing faster than both India and China combined.

ARPU figures are so much higher in Latin America than in either India or China, so we are looking at around $1 billion gain in monthly pay TV revenues sustained between 2010 and 2014 – almost the same as India and China combined. Asia Pacific has been the world’s pay TV hot house in terms of growing subscriber numbers, but in revenue terms Latin America represents a superior, coherent market with common cultural themes.

As Europe and the US crawled out of recession, in 2010, Latin American emerged more rapidly, with Brazil achieving 7.1% growth last year. As a result, suddenly well-off consumers in Latin America are upgrading pay TV options faster than almost any other entertainment service.

Unit Growth will be at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 15% to 2012, tapering off to 10% by the end of the forecast period late in 2014.

‘Pay TV in Latin America – Economic Miracle or another False Dawn’ shows where the power is concentrated among operators in the region and although there are still many hundreds of tiny operators, much power rests with the big three – DirecTV, Telmex International and Telefonica.

In technology terms this is a market that cable is currently winning, but can’t continue to win. Today it has a 59% market share of a 38 million home market; by 2014 it will have grown in absolute numbers, but its market share will have fallen to a mere 39% as satellite dwarfs it, and IPTV finally takes a firm grip in some key markets.

‘Pay TV in Latin America – Economic Miracle or another False Dawn’ contains market data on ARPU, Churn, set top dominance and conditional access and costs $1,995 for an individual copy.