LatAm_latam 09/07/2014 17:31 Page 10
MARKET FOCUS
igital TV is finally taking
off in Latin America –
from only 18.1%
penetration of TV
households at end-2010 to just over
the halfway mark by end-2014 and
onto 94.5% by 2020, according to a
new report from Digital TV Research.
To put it another way, 132 million
digital TV households (in the 19
countries covered in the Digital TV
D
Digital TV is tipped for significant
growth in the LatAm region. Here is
Advanced Television’s overview of the
sector and its prospects.
Latin America report) will be added
between 2010 and 2020 to take the
total to 157m. DTT will provide half
of the additional digital TV homes to
be added between 2010 and 2020.
DTT drives digital
TV in Latin America
According to Simon
Murray, principal
analyst at Digital TV
Research, much of this
growth is being driven
by satellite TV,
especially lower-cost and prepaid packages,
“although these subscribers are forcing
down average ARPU figures,” he advises.
Nearly 14.4m pay satellite TV
households will be added between 2013 and
2020, with 3.1m more in 2014 alone. Pay
satellite TV penetration will grow from
9.6% in 2010 to 21.1% by end-2014 and
onto 25.8% in 2020 – indicating that much
of the fast growth has already taken place.
Pay satellite TV is the leading digital
platform, but primary FTA DTT will
(cont. page 16)
Latin America profiles
TV households
(000)
2010
2013
Argentina
10450
10927
Brazil
60341
61549
Chile
4970
5166
Colombia
11850
12391
Mexico
26103
27301
Peru
4140
4380
Venezuela
6446
6745
Source: Digital TV Research
Telefónica losing
broadband and payTV share
Spanish group Telefónica,
which has leveraged its
Latin American operations
in recent years to help
compensate for poor
performance in its
economically-troubled
domestic market, is
struggling to keep up with
the growth rates of rival
operators in the region,
according to research from
Dataxis.
Telefónica has gradually
been losing market share in
both high-speed Internet
access and pay television –
two of its key
communications services in
South America, where it also
operates fixed and mobile
telephony networks. Between
December 2009 and March
14 LATAM Briefing
2020
12128
69736
5655
13752
30300
4997
7486
Digital
(000)
2010
2645
9419
1653
1399
6382
458
1493
TV households
2013
5190
31469
2413
3076
13776
929
3366
2013, the group’s residential
broadband operations have
seen market share fall by 9
percentage points in Brazil,
5.2 points in Peru, 5 points
in Chile, 2.6 points in
Argentina and 1.9 points in
Colombia, according to
Dataxis.
In the pay-TV business,
which Telefónica addresses
through multiple satellite
(DTH), cable, IPTV and OTT
systems, the company has
seen its market share
diminish from 5% of total
Latin American subscriptions
in 2007 to 4.4% by June
2013. During the same
period, the region’s largest
pay-TV operator (DirecTV
Latin America) increased its
market share by 11.2
percentage points (from
17.2% to 28.5% of regional
accounts), while
Luxembourg-based Millicom
2020
11824
68551
5486
12542
28330
4073
7224
Pay TV households
(000)
2010
2013
2020
7193
8196
9181
9769
18175 29777
1929
2557
3433
3509
4662
6010
10072
14732 21089
1015
1279
2199
2551
4223
5854
International has grown its
pay-TV customers from zero
to 1.2% of the market in less
than five years.
“The first five reports
from our Operator Profile
Series have revealed a
worrisome picture for
Telefónica’s long-term
ambitions in Latin America,”
said Juan Pablo Conti, senior
analyst at Dataxis, and
author of four of the reports.
“At a time when the demand
for both residential
broadband and pay-TV
services keeps growing
solidly in the region,
Telefónica might at first
sight appear to be benefiting
because its customer base is
expanding. However, it is
not expanding as fast as
rival established operators
such as DirecTV (in pay TV)
and America Movil (both in
pay TV and broadband). Even
Pay TV
(000)
2010
1606
3252
725
738
2900
198
762
revenues $m
2013
2091
7173
872
1123
4750
301
1208
2020
2334
9544
1071
1458
5694
445
1470
new entrants such as
Millicom are starting to eat
into Telefónica’s pay-TV and
broadband market shares,”
Conti added.
According to Dataxis, a
key reason behind
Telefónica’s modest growth
rate in Latin America is its
strategic decision to deploy
broadband and pay-TV
services only in the
geographic areas of each
country where the Spanish
telco operates as the
incumbent telephony
operator. Indeed, in the only
service for the only country
where this general rule was
not observed (the Movistar
DTH pay-TV service in
Venezuela), Telefónica has
enjoyed the fastest growth
rate for any of its multiple
telecommunications services
deployed anywhere around
the world.