Digital TV grows to 90% of all Dutch TV connections

HOUTEN, The Netherlands — Digital television increased to 90 percent of all TV connections in the Netherlands at the end of the second quarter of 2016, according to Telecompaper’s latest quarterly report on the Dutch television market. Despite growing digital penetration, there were fewer TV connections overall, with a quarterly loss of 3,000 for slightly more than 7.8 million connections in total at the end of June. Digital TV grew by 0.2 percent during the quarter, which was not enough to offset the quarterly drop of 2.5 percent in analogue TV connections.

KPN continued to grow its share of the Dutch TV market, at the expense of cable operator Ziggo. KPN added 0.3 percentage points in Q2 2016 to take 29.6 percent of subscribers, while Ziggo lost 0.3 percent points for a share of 51.4 percent. KPN’s growth is mainly driven by IPTV, via either fibre or DSL, which grew by 1.7 percent to 1.96 million customers. KPN’s total customer base (including Digitenne and analogue TV via fibre from former Lijbrandt customers) grew by 1.3 percent during the quarter to 2.3 million. On the digital TV market, KPN won 0.3 percentage points of market share in the quarter to reach 32.6 percent of subscribers.

Despite losing customers in Q2, Ziggo is still by far the market leader, with more than 4 million TV subscribers at the end of June 2016. Its digital TV subscriber base fell to 3.3 million, good for 46.8 percent of the digital TV market.

“KPN and Ziggo will have fewer customers to compete for in the future,” said Telecompaper analyst and report author Kamiel Albrecht. “In the period to 2020 we expect the TV market to contract by an average 0.6 percent per year.”

Almost all households already have a TV connection and fewer are taking subscriptions for second TVs, in favour of watching video on tablets, computers and other devices. At the same time so-called ‘cord-cutters’ and ‘cord-nevers’ are abandoning traditional TV subscriptions altogether in favour of the growing number of online video services on the market.

Telecompaper estimates that the TV services market* generated EUR 456 million in revenues in the second quarter of 2016, growing by 0.2 percent during the quarter. In the five years to 2020, TV revenues are expected to show an average annual decrease of 0.4 percent to around EUR 1.75 billion.

* The reported retail revenues are based on revenues from mass market consumer and SOHO subscriptions. The total includes revenues from basic TV subscriptions (digital/analogue), pay-TV services and video-on-demand services and excludes revenues from installation fees and set-top box sales.

Telecompaper’s ‘Dutch TV Market 2016 Q2’ report provides detailed figures for Q2 2016, a comparison with preceding quarters and five-year forecasts for subscriptions, revenues, and provider and technology market shares. The price for 10 users is EUR 795.00. The single-user price for the report is EUR 495.00.