Romania adds 110,000 pay TV subscribers in 2H 2016

ANCOM : Ever More Subscribers to Digital Cable TV Services

By end-2016, there were about 7.3 million subscribers to paid audio-visual programme retransmission services in Romania, up by 3%, according to the data reported to ANCOM by the providers. More than 4.7 million of these subscribed to cable networks, 2.4 million – to satellite (DTH) networks and 95 thousand – to IPTV. The subscribers receiving digital cable audio-visual programme retransmission services grew by over 10% at end-2016 compared to 2015. Infographic here.

The rise of the number of subscribers led to a higher penetration rate, at household level, of the paid audio-visual programme retransmission services, which thus exceeded 97%.

Within the total subscribers, 65% receive audio-visual programmes on cable networks, and 33% on satellite (DTH) networks, with the majority of urban residents (81%) using cable networks and rural residents using preponderantly DTH networks (58%). The IPTV subscribers account for 1.3% within the total subscribers, the IP technology being almost exclusively used in the urban area (i.e. 97% of the IPTV subscribers reside in the urban area).

Digital audio-visual programme retransmission services

In line with the last years’ trend, the number of subscribers to digital audio-visual programme retransmission services keeps rising, up to approx. 4.6 million, accounting for 63% of total subscribers, almost 5% y.o.y. growth.

As for the support used for receiving the TV programmes in digital format, at the end of last year, 53% (2.4 million) of the subscribers were using satellite (DTH) networks, whereas 45% (2.1 million) were using cable networks and 2% (95 thousand) – IP technology (IPTV). In the last year, the number of subscribers to services in digital format provided on cable networks increased by more than 10%, that of IPTV subscribers grew by over 14%, while the number of DTH subscribers remained more or less the same.

Pay TV subscribers (millions – except Growth)

                          2014          2015          2016
                  ------------  ------------  ------------  Growth
                  30.06  31.12  30.06  31.12  30.06  31.12     YoY
                  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  ------
Total              6.52   6.78   6.82   7.06   7.15   7.26   +2.9%
Cable TV           4.21   4.39   4.43   4.55   4.64   4.74   +4.2%
Satellite (DTH)    2.25   2.33   2.32   2.42   2.43   2.42   -0.1%
IPTV               0.06   0.07   0.07   0.08   0.09   0.10  +14.4%

Cable audio-visual programme retransmission services

The number of subscribers to cable networks registered an overall annual growth of 4%, i.e. 9% in rural area and 3% in urban area. Thus, the penetration rate of cable audio-visual programme retransmission services in urban area reached almost 84%, while it exceeded 37% in rural area. The share of subscribers to services received in digital format within the total subscribers to cable networks reached 44%, up by 3 percentage points y.o.y.

Statistical data report

ANCOM draws up the statistical data report on the Romanian electronic communications market in 2016 based on the statistical data reported – on a half-yearly basis – by the providers under the obligation to send ANCOM the values of the indicators corresponding to the service categories according to Decision no. 333/2013.