According to market figures released by the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y las Comuniaciones (CNMC), the country’s pay-TV market finished Q3 2016 with 6.01 million subscribers, almost 600,000 more than a year ago.
In fact, the market has shown an uninterrupted positive trend for the last four years, growing from 3.74 million pay-TV households in Q3 2013.
Fibre-based and convergent options are the main drivers of such growth, with 84.2% of total subscribers paying for a convergent offer, along with increasing competition and more affordable options.
In the past two years, IPTV subscribers have increased from 1.67 million to 3.34 million, forcing satellite options into a marginal position. In fact, direct-to-home operators represented a third of the market in 2014, but now account for 15%.
Together with fibre-based TV, cable has managed to hold on to second place. After adding over 200,000 new clients during last year, cable TV neared 1.5 million homes by September 2016.
As for operators, Telefónica’s Movistar+ has lost over 200,000 subscribers since 2015, but is still clearly dominating the market with 3.7 million pay-TV homes. The competition has benefitted from Movistar+’s weakened position, as Vodafone TV added over 300,000 subscribers (1.2 million homes by September 2016) and Orange TV doubled subs to end the quarter with 462,000.
Source: https://www.rapidtvnews.com/2017042847029/iptv-tops-soaring-spanish-pay-tv-market.html#axzz4fbVXljiB
