Pay TV penetration increases in Portugal, driven by fibre

Growth in pay TV by platform ‘000s. Source: Anacom

Pay TV penetration in Portugal stood at 86.6% at the end of last year, up 4.1 percentage points on 2014, according to figures compiled by regulator Anacom.

According to the regulator, Portugal had 3.52 million pay TV homes at the end of December, up 167,000 on the 2014 figure.

Growth was led by fibre-based offerings, which now have over 185,100 subscribers, representing 23.1% of all subscribers.

Cable remains the leading distribution technology overall, with 38.3% penetration, but the overall cable based declined by 1.4% over the previous year.

DSL-based IPTV fell by 1.2%, the first time since Anacom started gathering statistics, falling to third place among distribution technologies with 21.3% penetration.

DTH satellite saw its first increase since 2011, growing 1.7% to reach 17.4%.

About 87.8% of pay TV subscribers took their service as part of a converged package.

Total revenue from standalone and bundled pay TV services reached €1.662 billion in 2015, according to Anacom.

Nos remained the leading player in the market, with a share of 43.8%, followed by Meo with 40.7%, Vodafone with 10.2% and Cabovisão with 5.1%. Vodafone was the only player to increase its share.