Pay-TV Sub Numbers Grew 4 Percent in 2014, Expected To Reach 1.1 Billion in 2020, ABI Says
The worldwide pay-TV market grew at a 4 percent rate last year to reach 923.5 million subscribers, ABI Research said, but weak currency exchange rates slowed growth in pay-TV service revenue to $257 billion. Subscriptions are expected to top 1.1…
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billion in 2020, with $313 billion in service revenue, ABI said. Cable and terrestrial TV markets had weaker growth rates in 2014 compared with satellite and IPTV platforms, ABI said. High definition saw growth across all pay-TV platforms because of the increasing number of HD channels added by operators, it said. In 2014, 44 percent of the worldwide pay-TV subscriber base had access to HD, with the highest HD penetration in Western Europe and North America, the researcher said. HD penetration is expected to reach 60 percent of the pay-TV market in 2020. Pay-TV operators are slowly moving toward 4K Ultra HD service, ABI said, citing Amazon, DirecTV and Netflix in the U.S. Cable companies in the U.S. lost roughly 100,000 subscribers in Q4, although Comcast gained 7,000 subscribers, it said. DirecTV had 149,000 subscriber adds in Q4, its largest net addition since 2012, ABI said.