MUMBAI: India’s pay-TV market remains growth oriented. A new report released by Media Partners Asia (MPA) projects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12 per cent in total pay-TV channel revenue between 2014 and 2019 and a nine per cent CAGR between 2014-23.
The report further says that the total channel revenue will reach $8 billion by 2023 with 67 per cent derived from advertising and 23 per cent from subscription.
Moreover, during 2014 the pay-TV channels sector generated $3.5 billion in aggregate revenue, a growth of nine per cent year-on-year. The revenue mix stood at 68:32, skewed in favour of advertising sales. Affiliate fees for pay-TV broadcasters reached $1.1 billion in 2014, with $525 million from cable and $592 million from DTH.
For the first time, revenue from digital cable outgrew analog cable revenues. International revenues for pay-TV channels, which MPA does include in its analysis, totaled $280 million in 2014.
Additionally, India’s pay-TV industry will grow sales at a 9.8 per cent CAGR between 2014 and 2019 to reach $12.4 billion in revenue by 2019, according to the report.
The report further projects the sales to reach close to $16 billion by 2023. The pay-TV industry, as per MPA report, generated $7.7 billion in sales in 2014.
The report further highlights that the total pay-TV subscribers are expected to grow from 140 million in 2014 to 184 million by 2023. Pay-TV penetration, including multiple subs in a home, will climb incrementally from 80 per cent to 83 per cent over the 2014-23 period.
That apart, total digital pay-TV subscribers will grow from 68 million to 126 million over the 2014-23 period. Adjusted for multiple subscriptions, digital penetration of total pay-TV subscribers will be trending towards 67 per cent by 2023 versus 46 per cent in 2014.
According to MPA, analog to digital conversion will facilitate a gradual increase in pay-TV monthly ARPUs from $3.2 in 2014 to $4.7 in 2023, offset by a 30 per cent-plus share of pay-TV subscribers still accruing to analog, by 2023. Cable will remain the dominant platform; however, its share of pay-TV subscribers is expected to decline from 71 per cent in 2014 to 60 per cent in 2023, as DTH will command a majority share of net-new additions in the industry.
MPA vice president Mihir Shah said, “The pace of digitalization has slowed to a crawl as the cable industry pauses to address issues in order to improve monetization. This will help the industry deliver more ROI on already digitalized markets before addressing the remainder 70 million plus analog cable homes that require conversion. This is a big opportunity for cable, DTH and other emerging alternative pay-TV platforms.”
