Portugal: Highest pay-TV growth since 2015
December 11, 2020
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Portugal ended the third quarter of 2020 with 4.2 million pay-TV subscribers and accounting for a 91 per cent penetration rate for the service.
According to the National Communications Authority, 167,000 new subscribers (+4.1 per cent) were added in the quarter on a year-on-year basis, which represents the highest annual growth in absolute terms since 2015.
Fuelling the growth was FTTH, which added 275,000 subscribers (+14.6 per cent) and taking total accesses to 2.1 million, or 50.3 per cent of the overall pay-TV subscribers. Cable accounted for 31.5 per cent, followed by DTH (10.8 per cent) and ADSL (7.4 per cent).
Meo remained market leader with a 39.9 per cent share of pay-TV subscribers, just edging out NOS with 39.4 per cent. Vodafone Portugal followed with 17 per cent, and Nowo had 3.6 per cent.
Vodafone and Meo registered the highest growth on an annual basis, up by 1 per cent and 0.4 per cent, respectively.