Global digital penetration climbed from 40.4 percent of TV households at the end of 2010 to 74.6 percent by the end 2015, according to information just released by Digital TV Research. Through its “Digital TV World Databook,” the company reports that about 584 million digital TV homes were added in 138 countries between 2010 and 2015. This doubled the digital TV household total to 1,170 million.
Pay TV revenues — which include subscriptions and PPV revenues from movies and TV episodes — reached $206 billion in 2015, up by 19.4 percent from $172 billion in 2010, according to the research firm. The research shows the U.S. recording pay TV revenues nearly 10 times as high as second-place China.
From the 584 million digital homes added between 2010 and 2015, 156 million came from primary DTT (homes taking DTT but not subscribing to cable, satellite TV or IPTV). Digital cable contributed a further 231 million. There were more pay IPTV additions (88 million) than pay satellite TV ones (67 million). However, there were reportedly still 398 million analog TV households (terrestrial and cable) by the end 2015, although this was down from 863 million at the end of 2010.
The research also indicates that from the digital TV households additions between 2010 and 2015, 381 million were in the Asia Pacific region, more than doubling its total to 608 million. China became the largest digital TV household nation in 2010, rising to 339 million digital TV homes (29 percent of the world’s total) by the end of 2015.
The number of global digital pay TV subscribers reportedly doubled from 382 million in 2010 to 771 million in 2015.
China had the most pay TV subs, at 264 million by end-2015 (up by 69 million on 2010) and India added a further 32 million pay TV subs, according to the research.