Advanced Television

China to become Asia’s top pay-TV market this year

June 23, 2011

SNL Kagan has found that China’s pay-TV market, which has long been the world’s largest in terms of subscribers, with 2011 revenues of $7.5 billion is set to surpass Japan for the first time in value, ranking China as the top pay-TV market in Asia and the 5th largest in the world.

China’s video service revenues grew 31.1 per cent in 2010 to reach $5.8 billion with growth driven by cable digitisation and a 9.0 per cent increase in pay-TV households. Between 2010 and 2015, SNL Kagan forecasts China’s multichannel subscriber base will grow at a 5.8 per cent CAGR to reach 259.5 million households as video service revenues grow at a 20.5 per cent CAGR to $14.7 billion.

Key findings in the reports include:
– Despite IPTV gaining momentum, cable continues to dominate China’s pay-TV landscape accounting for 95.7 per cent of multichannel subscribers and 91.2 per cent of video service revenues in 2010.
– 47.0 per cent of China’s cable subscribers had migrated to digital connections by end 2010. In 2011 a further 22.5 million households are expected to adopt digital cable service.
– HD services are gaining ground with 2.5 million cable homes adopting the set-top-boxes and packages needed to access HD programming in 2010. By 2015, 17.2 million cable households are forecast to be HD.
– VOD is gaining steam with deployments in place at major operators including: Jiangsu BC&TV Network, Shenzhen Topway, Hebei TV Network, Oriental Cable Network, Wasu Digital TV, Shaanxi BC&TV Network, Chongqing Cable Network, and Beijing Gehua.
– IPTV accounted for 3.8 per cent of China’s multichannel subscribers in 2010, with 7.4 million households generating $493.2 million in video service revenues.
– China is the world’s largest fixed broadband market, with 31.1 per cent of total households or 126.3 million subscribing to fixed line broadband in 2010.

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