SES carrying 22 UHD channels
June 30, 2017
By Chris Forrester
SES of Luxembourg says it is now carrying 22 Ultra HD channels on its satellites, up 47 per cent year-on-year.
At its Investor Day, held in London on June 28th, SES said it is now carrying 7610 TV channels on its fleet of satellites (up 4 per cent) and of that total 2496 were in High Definition (up 6 per cent y-o-y), which represented an HD penetration rate of 33 per cent. SES’ European channel count was of about 1800 Standard Definition channels, and 740 which were being carried in HD.
Its wholly-owned distribution and play-out arm, MX1, was now handling 2750 channels around the globe.
SES quoted Euroconsult data which is forecasting that by 2025 there would be some 1116 UHD channels (not all available on SES satellites) out of a global total of about 47,300 channels. Of that number, about 22,485 would be in High Definition and these HD channels were likely to grow at some 10 per cent (CAGR).
The potential for UHD was considerable, and “UHD acceleration [was] providing additional upside potential” in terms of SES’ revenue picture.
Additionally, SES was anticipating tapping into the growing demand for TV in developing and emerging markets, notably in the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America and Africa where Euroconsult is forecasting growth of more than 35 per cent in the channel count between 2016-2025.