LatAm Digital TV Homes to Double

LONDON: The number of digital TV households in Latin America is forecast to double by 2020, despite slowing economic growth.

The Digital TV Latin America Forecasts report estimates there will be 152 million digital TV households by 2020. Digital TV will climb from only 17.9 percent penetration of TV households at end-2010 to just over the halfway mark by end-2014 and onto 93.6 percent by 2020.

Brazil is poised to add 28 million digital TV households during this time period, with Mexico contributing an additional 11 million and Argentina nearly 5 million more. Puerto Rico was the first country to reach complete conversion to digital, in 2014, and Panama and Uruguay will be the only other countries to reach complete digital conversion by 2020.

Primary free-to-air DTT will overtake pay satellite TV as the leading digital platform in 2016. The number of primary DTT homes will surge from 4.2 million at end-2010 to 68 million by 2020. Nearly 10 million pay satellite TV households will be added between 2014 and 2020, taking penetration to a quarter of TV households by 2020.

Some 18.2 million digital cable subscribers are expected to be added between 2014 and 2020, taking penetration to one-fifth of TV households. The number of analog cable subscribers will drop from 18 million to 4.3 million. IPTV will climb from 1.3 million subscribers in 2014 to 6.8 million by 2020.

Brazil will remain the top country by pay-TV revenues by some distance ($8.6 billion in 2020), followed by Mexico ($5.6 billion) and Argentina ($2.3 billion).

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 analog cable in 2014 and IPTV will pass analog cable in 2020.