Pay TV revenues ‘will slow in Lat Am’

Latin American pay TV revenues will grow just 9% by 2021, according to new reseach.

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The fifth edition of Digital TV Research’s Digital TV Latin America Forecasts report suggests the combined total of subscription and pay-per-view revenues in the region will total just US$1.6 billion in growth in the six years from 2015.

During the period, satellite TV will remain the biggest pay TV medium, with revenues reaching US$13.1 billion in 2021, compared with US$12.6 billion last year.

Cable revenues will grow from US$5.1 billion in 2015 to US$5.6 billion.

“Digital cable TV revenues overtook analog cable in 2014 and IPTV will pass analog cable by 2020,” said Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research. “IPTV revenues will grow by the same amount as satellite TV and cable TV over this period.”

Brazil will remain the top sales-generating territory in Latin America between 2015 and 2021. The US$7.3 billion it’s predicted to bring in is more than double the second-best performing territory, Mexico, which will take US$3.4 billion. Argentina is third with US$2.2 billion.

These three territories will take two-thirds of regional pay TV revenues for the 19 territories covered in the report, but revenues will fall in Brazil, along with Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

Overall pay TV penetration will reach 50.6% by 2021, up from 45% at end-2015 and 28.7% at end-2010. That means 14 million new pay TV homes in the forecasted period, and a total of 82 million.

Unsurprisingly, Brazil will add the most of these – a predicted 4.7 million, with Mexico adding 3.7 million.

There were more than 27 million subscription additions between 2010 and 2015, with Brazil adding 9.1 million and Mexico 7.1 million during that period.

Other findings in the report suggest Puerto Rico will have the highest pay TV penetration in the region, at 83%, with Argentina, Honduras, Panama and Venezuela all above 70%. Brazil is among five territories that will be below 40%.