Digital TV Research: Satellite TV Revenues Set to Overtake Cable in 2015

LONDON: The Digital TV World Revenue Forecasts report estimates that satellite revenues will surpass total cable TV revenues this year.

The report estimates that satellite TV accounted for 44 percent of the total in 2014, rising to 46 percent by 2020. However, cable TV revenues will drop from 46 percent of the total in 2014 to 40 percent in 2020. IPTV, which is the fastest growing platform, will increase from a 10 percent share in 2014 to 13 percent by 2020.

Satellite TV revenues will reach $94.8 billion in 2020. The U.S. will remain the leader in the satellite TV market. Brazil will be second by 2020, having overtaken the U.K. in 2013. India will add the most satellite TV revenues—$2.5 billion, moving from tenth to fifth place—between 2014 and 2020. However, the U.S. will decrease by $421 million, Canada by $805 million and France by $232 million.

Global cable TV revenues peaked at $93.8 billion in 2012, and will decline to $81.9 billion in 2020. However, cable operators will gain extra revenues by converting subscribers to bundles. Analog cable TV revenues will plummet by $14.4 billion between 2014 and 2020 to only $1.5 billion. Digital cable TV revenues will climb by 5.6 percent from $76.1 billion in 2014 to $80.3 billion in 2020, or up by nearly $19 billion between 2010 and 2020. Digital cable TV revenues in the U.S. will fall by $8.9 billion between 2014 and 2020 to $34.1 billion. Digital cable TV revenues will drop for 20 countries over the same period. Second-placed China will increase its revenues by $2.1 billion to $8.9 billion and third-placed Japan by $2 billion to $5.1 billion. India will add $3.2 billion in digital cable TV revenues to take its total to $4.3 billion.

IPTV revenues will increase to $27.9 billion in 2020—triple the 2010 figure. IPTV revenues in the U.S. will increase by $1.3 billion between 2014 and 2020 to $9.5 billion, with Canada second with $2.3 billion. Third-placed China will be up by $1.1 billion to $2.1 billion (just ahead of Japan).

Pay TV revenues will more than double in 33 countries between 2014 and 2020. India’s revenues will grow by $4.7 billion between 2014 and 2020, with China up by $1.6 billion and Japan increasing by $1.1 billion. Global pay TV revenues—subscription fees and on-demand movies and TV episodes—will increase by just 2.6 percent between 2014 and 2020 to $207 billion. This follows 14.5 percent growth between 2010 and 2014.

Total revenues in North America will fall by 11.7 percent between 2014 and 2020. Western Europe will be flat at $32 billion. Revenues will grow by 30 percent in the Asia-Pacific region to $42 billion. Asia Pacific will overtake Western Europe in 2015, and will be larger than the whole of Europe by 2019. Eastern Europe will add $1 billion (up by 17 percent) between 2014 and 2020. Latin America will add a further $2.6 billion (up by 13 percent) between 2014 and 2020. In the Sub-Saharan Africa region, revenues will rocket by 76 percent and by 32 percent in Middle East & North Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa will pass MENA in 2018.