DirecTV LatAm subs
to outperform US
F
or the first time in the company’s
history, the DirecTV Group will
end this year with more pay-TV
subscribers in Latin America than in its
native US market, according to findings
from business intelligence firm Dataxis.
As of Q3 2014, 51.7% of the 39.1 million
global customers that the DTH operator had
were US residents, while the remaining 48.3%
were distributed across Latin America and the
Caribbean (including in Mexico and Central
America, where DirecTV owns 41% of pay-TV
company Sky Mexico).
The US division has historically been losing
market share within the group since DirecTV
began to expand its operations in Latin
America in the mid-1990s. With still plenty
of room for growth in the region – unlike
the saturated US pay-TV market – Dataxis
predicts that 2015 will signal the year when
Latin American subscribers will finally
outnumber US customers. This trend will
continue in following years. By 2018 Dataxis
expects LatAm to account for nearly 56% of
the group’s subscriber base.
These figures do not take into account the
number of US IPTV subscribers of AT&T,
the telecoms group that is currently waiting
for regulatory approval to acquire DirecTV’s
global operations.
Depending on whether Sky Mexico’s
subscribers are counted or not as part of
the group (the majority stakeholder in that
company is Grupo Televisa), DirecTV is
currently either the largest or the secondlargest pay-TV operator in Latin America
behind America Movil. Including Sky Mexico’s
subscribers, DirecTV has grown its market
share from 17.4% of total pay-TV subscribers
in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2007 to
28.5% in Q3 2014.
“After an initial period characterized by
the positioning of the DirecTV brand as an
exclusive product targeted at the higherearning portions of the pay-TV market, the
company was then very successful in attracting
new customers through the launch of prepaid
DTH services and low-cost video packages,”
said Juan Pablo Conti, senior analyst at
Dataxis and author of the new DirecTV Latin
America report, part of the Pay-TV Operators
Series 2015.
Across Latin America, DirecTV had over
40% of its entire customer base subscribing to
prepaid services as of Q3 2014, according to
Dataxis.
10 LATAM Briefing
Digital TV homes to
double in LatAm
Despite slowing economic growth, the
number of digital TV households in Latin
America will double by 2020. A report by Digital
TV Research estimates 152 million digital TV
households by 2020. Digital TV will climb from
only 17.9% penetration of TV households at end2010 to just over the halfway mark by end-2014
and onto 93.6% by 2020.
From the 19 countries covered in the
forecasts, Brazil will add 28m digital TV
households during this time frame, with
Mexico contributing an extra 11m and
Argentina nearly 5m more. Puerto Rico was
the first country to reach complete conversion
to digital – in 2014. Panama and Uruguay will
be the only other countries to reach complete
digital conversion by 2020.
Primary FTA DTT will overtake pay satellite
TV is the leading digital platform in 2016. The
number of primary DTT homes will rocket from
4.2m at end-2010 to 68.0m by 2020 (giving
41.9% penetration).
Nearly 10m pay satellite TV households
will be added between 2014 and 2020, taking
penetration to a quarter of TV households by
2020. However, much of its fast growth has
already taken place.
About 18.2m digital cable subscribers to
be added between 2014 and 2020; taking
penetration to a fifth of TV households.
Conversely, the number of analogue cable
subscribers will plummet from 18.0m to 4.3m.
IPTV will climb from 1.3m subscribers in
2014 to 6.8m by 2020. Brazil ($8.6 billion in
2020) will remain the top country by pay TV
revenues by some distance, followed by Mexico
($5.6 billion) and Argentina ($2.3 billion) –
collectively taking 71% of the total.
Pay-TV revenues in Latin America will
grow by $2.6 billion between 2014 and 2020.
Satellite TV will continue to be the largest pay
TV platform, with revenues reaching $16.7
billion in 2020. Cable TV will bring in a further
$5.9 billion. Digital cable TV revenues will
overtake analogue cable in 2014 and I