Pay TV subs to rise globally but drop in US

Global pay TV subscriptions will jump by 60 million by 2024 thanks to new users in countries such as China and India, but US firms are likely to lose 16% of their subscribers over the same period, according to new research.

Simon Murray

The forecast comes from London-based Digital TV Research, whose predicted rise of 60 million pay TV subscribers would bring the global total to 1.08 billion.

China is expected to generate 19 million additional subscribers and India 26 million by 2024. These figures represent global market growth of 19% and 17%, respectively, and would mean the two countries would account for half of the world’s pay TV subscribers.

However, the predictions for the US were less positive, with Digital TV Research estimating the market would lose 14.4 million pay TV subscribers between 2018 and 2024, a drop of 16%.

The research firm also predicted a drop in global pay TV revenues, which it estimated would fall by 17% to US$171bn by 2024.

“The US is the world’s worst performer, with no uplift expected over the next five years,” said Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research. “Other countries will experience a slowdown – or even some small declines in subscriber numbers – but no other country will match the gloomy projections for the US.”

The big winner in the projections was IPTV, which the research company said would add 100 million subscribers between 2018 and 2024 to grow to 357 million users.