China Pay-TV Revenues to Surpass Japan

MONTEREY: China’s pay-TV revenues are set to reach $7.5 billion this year, according to SNL Kagan, surpassing Japan’s for the first time and making the country Asia’s top pay-TV market.

Video service revenues in China were up by 31.1 percent in 2010, reaching $5.8 billion, driven by cable digitization and a 9-percent increase in pay-TV homes. SNL Kagan is forecasting a 5.8-percent CAGR in multichannel subs between 2010 and 2015 to reach 259.5 million. In that time, SNL Kagan expects a 20.5 percent CAGR in revenues to reach $14.7 billion.

The research also indicates that cable is the dominant platform, accounting for almost 96 percent of subscribers and 91.2 percent of revenues in 2010. By the end of last year, 47 percent of subscribers had migrated to digital services. This base is forecast to grow by 22.5 million homes in 2011. Gains are also seen for the HD base, which is expected to reach 17.2 million by 2015.

“China’s pay-TV market continues to see exceptional growth as cable digitization and IPTV rollouts invigorate product offerings and boost average-revenue-per user," said Eva Zhang, media and communications analyst at SNL Kagan. "Over the coming five years we expect cable and IPTV ARPU will grow at 13.7 percent and 5 percent CAGR, respectively.”