Pay TV in 21% of TV households in East Africa

Friday, July 31st, 2015
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Pay-TV reaches 21% of TV households in East African community

  • Dataxis research analyzes the FTA and Pay-TV markets in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania & Uganda

MAURITIUS — The five countries of the East African Community (EAC) had a total population of 146.89 million end-2014, with 33.61 million households and a TV household penetration rate of 23%. Kenya is the most developed market in the region with 12.04 million households and a TV household penetration rate of 32%. Uganda has 7.35 million households and a TV household penetration rate of 25%, followed by Tanzania with 9.8 million households and a TV household penetration rate of 17%.

Pay-TV/ FTA Broadcasting in East African Community highlights that Pay-TV services accounted for approximately 1.61 million households end-2014, meaning that free-to-air (FTA) broadcasting is still the primary access method in over 79% of TV households. Tanzania had the largest Pay-TV base in the region with 592,700 users end-2014, accounting for 36% of the EAC total. Kenya was second with 561,000 users, followed by Uganda with 359,000, Burundi with 62,500 and Rwanda with 38,000.

According to research by Dataxis, DTT had an overall 53% market share of total Pay-TV users, followed by DTH with 43% and the remainder on CATV systems in Kenya and Tanzania. StarTimes edged MultiChoice in terms of overall market share with 39% against 38%. The largest single platform was StarTimes DTT with 34% market share, followed by the MultiChoice DSTV satellite offering (20%) and its GOtv DTT service (18%). StarSat, the StarTimes DTH offering, accounted for a further 4%.

Analogue terrestrial was by far the largest access method for the 6.16 million FTA users across the EAC end-2014 accounting for 68% of total users. DTT had a 26% market share, followed by DTH with 6%. Rwanda was the only country to have completely turned off analogue end-2014, followed by Tanzania in February, 2015, and Kenya in March.

Separate reports are also available on each of the five EAC member countries – Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania & Uganda.