Global satellite television revenue is expected to reach $99.9 billion by 2020, a nearly 14% increase from last year’s $87.8 billion in sales, according to a new report by Digital TV Research.
The Global Satellite TV Forecasts estimates that Asia Pacific and Latin America will show the strongest growth, while western Europe declines as completion for other platforms increases.
The Digital TV Research report looks at 138 countries and estimates that total satellite homes will rise from 192 million at the end of 2013 to 271 million by 2020. Of those 78.5 million additional homes, 27.7 million will come from India, 5.8 million from Brazil and 5.4 million from Indonesia, the report estimates. The pay TV subscriber total will more than double in 47 countries, while 13 countries will experience declines between 2013 and 2020.
Digital TV Research predicts satellite TV revenues will overtake cable TV revenues in 2014, accounting for 46.0% of total pay TV revenues and rising to 47.8% by 2020. The US will remain the satellite TV market leader by revenues generated, while India will add the most satellite TV revenues ($3.2 billion; tripling its total) between 2013 and 2020. Next is Brazil with an additional $1.6 billion, followed by the US with an additional $1.5 billion. The report predicts that satellite revenue will more than double in 44 countries in the next six years.
Others will see declines as competition continues to heat up.
“Satellite TV revenues will decline for 19 countries between 2013 and 2020,” said report author Simon Murray in a statement. “Much of this is due to greater competition forcing satellite TV platforms to offer cheaper packages which will lead to lower ARPUs. Furthermore, low-cost satellite TV packages are making a significant impact in several countries.”
Including free-to-air and pay satellite TV households, the report estimates that 439 million homes will directly receive TV signals via satellite dishes by 2020, up by almost 100 million from 2013. More than 25% of global TV households will have a satellite TV dish by 2020, up from 18.3% in 2010 and 22.3% in 2013, according to Digital TV Research.
