Pay TV subscribers in Portugal up 3.2% in 1Q 2012

Monday, June 4th, 2012
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According to Portugal’s Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (ANACOM), there were 3.073 million subscribers to subscription TV as at the end of 1st Quarter 2012 (1Q2012), 96 thousand more than in the previous quarter.

At the end of March, cable TV accounted for 48% of pay-TV subscribers – 0.6 percentage points down on the previous quarter – while DTH accounted for 22.9% and xDSL 19.1%. The share of fiber optic (FTTH/B) continued to increase, accounting for 10% of total subscribers.

In terms of numbers, subscribers to cable television – around 1.48 million – increased by about 28,000 over the previous quarter. Direct To Home (DTH) subscribers reached 704,000, an increase of 5,000 over the previous quarter and 33,000 up on the same period of 2011, and Fiber optic (FTTH/B) pay-TV subscribers increased 16.7%, to 307,000. IPTV over xDSL registered 587,000 customers at the end of March, 20,000 more than in the previous quarter.

Turning to operator share, ZON/TV Cabo had 52.8% of customers, PTC had 36.1%, and Cabovisão, the third largest operator, had 8.4% of the market.

Subscription television service subscribers by technology (Units: 1000 subscribers; %)

                                                     Quarterly     Annual
                                 11Q1   11Q4   12Q1  variation  variation
                                -----  -----  -----  ---------  ---------
Cable                           1,428  1,447  1,475       1.9%       3.3%
DTH                               671    699    704       0.7%       4.9%
FTTH                              168    263    307      16.7%      82.8%
Other technologies (xDSL, FWA)    538    567    587       3.5%       9.1%
Total                           2,806  2,977  3,073       3.2%       9.5%

Source: ICP-ANACOM

Provider shares of subscription TV service subscribers (Unit: %):

                            11Q3   11Q4   12Q1
                           -----  -----  -----
Grupo ZON/TV Cabo          54.7%  53.9%  52.8%
  ZON TV Cabo Portugal     49.4%  48.8%  47.9%
  ZON TV Cabo Açoreana      2.5%   2.4%   2.3%
  ZON TV Cabo Madeirense    2.9%   2.8%   2.6%
PT Comunicações            33.5%  35.0%  36.1%
Cabovisão                   8.8%   8.6%   8.4%
AR Telecom                  0.7%      -      -
Vodafone                    0.9%   1.2%   1.3%
Optimus                     1.2%   1.2%   1.2%
Other providers             0.2%   0.1%   0.1%

Source: ICP-ANACOM