BNAmericas | March 23, 2011 | Patrick Nixon
Latin American telcos will help ensure that satellite surpasses cable by 2015 in terms of high definition pay TV subscribers, but the long-term migration path for telcos is still IPTV, Carlos Blanco, analyst with Argentine telecoms consultancy Dataxis NexTV, told BNamericas.
In 2010, cable accounted for 51% of the total volume of HD TV subscribers in the region, compared to satellite with 45%, while the rest went to IPTV.
By 2015, DTH satellite will account for 46.2% of the volume of HD subscribers, compared to cable with 41.7% and IPTV with 12.1%
Even so, in 2015 cable operators will still lead DTH in terms of the total percentage of their subscriber base that is using HD.
Dataxis NexTV forecasts that HD TV subscribers in Latin America could reach 16.5mn in 2015, representing 22.7% of the total pay TV subscriber base compared with 5.4% in 2005. Brazil, Mexico and Argentina will account for 79% of those HD subscribers.
However, Brazil, Chile and Colombia are seeing the highest HD TV penetration rates.
According to Blanco, HD marks an opportunity for pay TV providers to create a new premium offering.
Digital channels are rapidly becoming the basic service for operators like VTR Chile, while HD and DVR will become the new premium services. That is being speeded up by the introduction of open digital TV – ongoing in many Latin American markets at the moment – which has fueled an influx of HD compatible TV sets and growth of HD content.
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