Costa Rica TV subscriptions up 6.2% in 2018

SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — Costa Rica’s Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (SUTEL) has releases statistics for the country’s telecoms market in 2018.

At the end of the year there were 31 companies providing subscription television in Costa Rica, with 25 offering cable TV, two offering IPTV and the remainder delivering signals using wireless technologies (satellite, MMDS).

Costa Rica finished 2018 with 884 thousand pay TV subscribers, with the majority (67%) receiving signals via cable. Next was satellite (DTH) with 29%. The market grew by 52 thousand (6.2%) over the year.

Subscribers by technology

Technology      2014     2015     2016     2017     2018
-----------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------
Cable TV     510,390  531,807  548,113  563,607  594,508
DTH          217,140  257,986  257,486  244,881  255,193
IPTV           4,191    6,434   14,702   22,054   33,075
MMDS             825    1,003    1,274    1,365    1,107
-----------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------
Total        732,546  797,230  821,575  831,907  883,883

Total subscribers by quarter

       End-Q1   End-Q2   End-Q3   End-Q4
----  -------  -------  -------  -------
2017  825,490  827,804  827,728  831,907
2018  840,554  861,815  866,504  883,883