Chile’s Telecommunications Ministry says that the nation wrapped last year with 2.06 million pay-TV subs, which is a y-o-y growth of a very respectable 7.1 per cent, but this is considerably down on the previous year’s growth of 15.9 per cent.

DirecTV added a net 41,000 Chilean subs, taking its total to 240,000 homes, while Telefonica added 49,000 subs boosting its overall subs in the country to 386,000. VTR closed December with about 911,000 subscribers but this represented very modest growth of just 17,000 clients during the year. Claro recorded 406,000 users and added more than 35,000 subs.  As of December 2011, Telsur recorded 49,000 subscribers and added 14,000 users during said year. Despite the overall DTH growth rate, the small regional operator TuVes is in its death throes, with just 11,000 users and, according to the regulator, it lost 23,000 clients during the year.

However, looking at Q4 of the year it is clear that growth is slowing. VTR lost about 5,000 users, TuVes lost about 7,000 and Claro lost more than 8,000 clients in the three months to Dec 31st. Overall, Chile’s pay-TV position was static during Q4, adding just 629 subscribers. In Q4/2011 the industry added more than 139, 000 users. In 2010 the Q4 growth was 264,000 clients.

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