Digital pay TV in Latin America to reach 94% of total subscribers in 2022

Monday, June 26th, 2017
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Digital Pay-TV continues to expand in Latin America. According to Dataxis, by 2016 digital TV was up to 85% of total TV subscribers and is expected to reach 94% by 2022, thus, making analog Pay-TV increasingly marginal.

Growth is driven by the progression of DTH, a 100% digital technology currently used by 50.8% of the total subscribers in Latin America, and forecasted to reach 51.5% in 2022 as per Dataxis’ latest research. In addition, Cable TV subscribers (the second largest Pay-TV technology in the region) are increasingly choose Digital Cable. In 2016, Digital Cable reached 68% of all Cable TV subscribers and forecasts to arrive at 85% in 2022.

Latin America Digital TV Penetration 2016-2022

On the other hand, fully digital IPTV technology is being developed at a sustained pace. 2% of Pay-TV subscribers used this technology in 2016 and Dataxis expects it will be at 6% in 2022 with a subscriber base that will be multiplied by three and a half times. Marginal Pay-TV technologies such as analog MMDS and analog UHF terrestrial TV will disappear completely over the next five years.

Dataxis’ analysis highlights that the expansion of Digital Pay-TV follows different penetration rates in Latin American countries, even among the most advanced economies. Some have already implemented an “analog Cable TV blackout”. In fact, there is no regulation about it in the region and countries like: Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Panama and Puerto Rico already have more than 90% digital subscribers in 2016. However, some countries namely: Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua have a penetration below 60%.