Portugal ended 2013 with around 4,000 more pay-TV subscribers than it completed 2012 with. A mid-year dip was taken over parity by the addition of 8,500 subscribers in the third and fourth quarters of the year.
Fibre-delivered services were responsible for much of the growth reported by the regulator Anacom. The number of subscribers to cable TV and DTH services fell during the fourth quarter fell by 1.1% and 2.8% respectively.
In December, cable TV made up 44.2% of all subscribers, while xDSL represented 21.6% and DTH 19.3%. Optical fibre (FTTH/B) was used by 14.9% of all subscribers.
It is estimated that 77.9% of subscription TV subscribers received their service as part of a bundle. The growth rate in the number of bundles with subscription TV was 2.4% in the last quarter of the year.
Grupo ZON Optimus had the highest share of pay-TV subscribers (47.8%), followed by PTC, Cabovisão and Vodafone with shares of 41.5%, 7.1% and 3.5%, respectively.
Total revenues from the subscription TV service (stand-alone and bundles that include this service) totalled €1.2779 billion (increasing 3.1% compared to the same period in 2012).
At the end of December, about 19.4% of homes with subscription TV had access to premium channels (a decline of 1.2 percentage points compared to December 2012), while 58.7% had access to more than 80 channels (an increase 10 percentage points compared to the December 2012).
