Asia Pacific Pay TV Revenues to Climb by US$ 10 billion

London, UK, March 12, 2015--Pay TV revenues in the Asia Pacific region (22 countries) will grow by US$ 10 billion between 2014 and 2020, according to Digital TV Research. The Digital TV Asia Pacific Forecasts report estimates that pay TV revenues will reach US$ 41.52 billion by 2020.

Cable TV will remain the highest pay TV earner, with revenues at $23 billion by 2020. Digital cable TV revenues will grow by 63% between 2014 and 2020 to US$ 22.54 billion, with analog cable TV falling from US$ 6.20 billion to US$ 0.56 billion. 

Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “The number of homes paying for IPTV will overtake pay satellite TV subscribers in 2018. IPTV revenues will climb to US$ 7.13 billion by 2020, up from US$ 4.43 billion in 2014. However, pay satellite TV revenues will remain higher than IPTV. India will generate US$ 4.15 billion of the region’s US$ 11.06 billion satellite TV revenues in 2020,” Murray added.

Pay TV penetration will rise from 59.0% of TV households in 2014 to 68.4% in 2020, adding 142 million subs to take the total to 642 million. Even more impressive is that digital pay TV penetration will climb from 20.9% in 2010 to 44.2% in 2014 on to 67.0% in 2020. Digital pay TV subscribers will quadruple from 163 million in 2010 to 628 million by 2020. China will provide 323 million pay TV households by 2020, with India supplying a further 179 million.

China overtook Japan to become the most lucrative pay TV market in 2012. India will take second place from 2020. Together China, India and Japan will account for two-thirds of the region’s US$ 42 billion pay TV revenues by 2020.

Pay TV revenues will more than double in seven countries (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan) between 2014 and 2020. However, revenues will fall (due to greater competition - including OTT – and subscribers converting to bundles) during this period in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan, with low growth expected in South Korea.