DTH revenue to cross $100 bn by 2018: study

As subscribers switch to higher ARPU (average revenue per user) premium services, subscription revenue from the overall direct-to-home (DTH) industry is expected to grow from $65 billion in 2008 to over $100 billion by 2018. According to the NSR report -Global Direct DTH Markets, revenues from basic DTH services are expected to contribute smaller percentages going forward. The report also suggests that DTH subscribers will grow from 114 million in 2008 to 209 million by 2018.

A total of 99 DTH operators were beaming over 13,800 channels at the end of 2008. However, at a compounded annual growth rate of 4.6 per cent, the total number of channel to be beamed is expected to cross more than 21,000 by 2018-end. The report spans 10 regions and finds both similarities and differences that have made the whole DTH market greater than some of its parts. North America, Western Europe and East Asia dominate all channel, subscriber and revenue counts, and growth in these regions comes from premium services such as High Definition (HD) and Digital Video Recorders (DVRs). Central and Eastern Europe, South Asia and South America, on the other hand, are very much on the growth track, but in their case, plain vanilla DTH subscribers are the biggest drivers. NSR's multi-regional presence with analysts in five distinct regions of the world provides for both local perspective and global coverage of these trends.

Another trend that defines the mature markets is that of fierce competition as cable and satellite battle it out, and the threat of IPTV looms large in countries such as France and the US. Elsewhere, DTH platforms are cooperating with telecom giants to carry the trinity of voice, video and data over a combination of media. Foes turn into friends as platforms consolidate in order to achieve the critical mass required to bring in advertising revenues. NSR has not only looked at the prevailing market trends, but gone on to analyze their impact, both in the past year and forwards until 2018. Regarding the difference of this report from other DTH studies, NSR senior analyst Prashant Butani stated, "Television is an industry that everyone can talk about because we are all part of the audience. However, quantifying market trends is a different issue altogether, and this is where NSR's 10 region, 100 operator, 2,800 data point forecast delivers the bottom line to those that want more detail. NSR's report further segments these numbers into 4 product categories that allow companies serving this industry to go after their target market more effectively."

Courtesy - Indiantelevision