Portugal Q1 pay-TV subs up 3.2% on 2012
May 31, 2013
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Portugal ended the first quarter of 2013 with 3.13 million pay-TV subscribers, a growth of 7,000 subscribers on the previous quarter (+0.2 per cent) and 97,000 more (+3.2 per cent) on the same period in 2012, according to data published by the National Communications Authority (Anacom).
Bundles supported by fibre optics (FTTH/B) grew by 5.2 per cent in the quarter, with over 20,000 new subscribers. Pay-TV offers supported on the public telephone network (xDSL) also grew, by 1.7 per cent, corresponding to 11,000 new subscribers. In this period, the number of subscribers to the cable TV service DTH technology decreased by 0.7 and 2.1 per cent, respectively.
In terms of distribution of subscribers by technology type, cable TV accounted for 46.2 per cent of total subscribers (1.45 million), followed by DTH with 20.7 per cent (646,000), xDSL with 19.9 per cent (623,000) and fibre optic (FTTH/B) with 13.2 per cent (414,000).
In the quarter, about 74 per cent of pay-TV subscribers had this service integrated into a package.
The Zon/TV Cabo Group still has the highest share of pay-TV subscribers, with 49.7 per cent. PT Comunicações (PTC) is second with 39.9 per cent, followed by Cabovisão (7.6 per cent), Vodafone Portugal (1.4 per cent), Optimus (1.2 per cent) and other providers (0.2 per cent).
Total revenues for the subscription TV service (stand-alone and packages that include this service) totaled €312 million in the quarter, 2.7 per cent more than in the Q1 2012.
ARPU related to packages that include the pay-TV service fell 4 per cent y/y to €33.60/month, while ARPU for the individual TV service increased by 2.8 per cent to €32.50.
At the end of the Q1 2013, about half of households with subscription TV had over 80 channels and about 21.1 per cent had access to premium channels, 3.7 percentage points less than in the Q1 2012.