Portugal: Pay-TV penetration nears 86%
June 3, 2019
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
The penetration rate of the pay-TV service in Portugal reached 85.9 per cent at the end of 2018, according to data published by the National Communications Authority (Anacom).
The number of subscribers reached 3.9 million, or 140,000 more than in the previous year. The growth rate was 3.7 per cent, below the average of the last four years (4.1 per cent).
The growth was due to FTTH-supported offers, which added 303,000 subscribers (+22.8 per cent). In fact, FTTH was the leading access technology, accounting for 41.4 per cent of pay-TV subscribers (+6.5 per cent).
All other access technologies registered a decrease: cable TV (-0.9 per cent to 34.1 per cent of the total), satellite TV/DTH (-8.7 per cent to 12.7 per cent) and ADSL (-18.2 per cent to 11.8 per cent).
An estimated 79.3 per cent of pay-TV households had more than 100 channels (+3.1 per cent), while 15.8 per cent had access to premium channels. Also, 10.9 per cent subscribed to video on demand streaming services (+4.5 per cent).
The NOS Group is still leader with a 41.2 per cent market share, while other relevant players include Meo (39.2 per cent), which saw the highest growth in 2018, Vodafone (15.1 per cent) and Nowo (4.3 per cent).
Around 95.9 per cent of homes with subscription TV purchased this service as part of a package (+0.4 per cent), based on data from Marktest’s Telecommunications Barometer.