Dutch incumbent KPN continues to grow its share of the Dutch TV market, at the expense of cable operator Ziggo.
KPN added 0.4% in the third quarter to take 28% of all TV subscribers in the Netherlands, while Ziggo lost 0.5%, but still remains the number one TV provider with a share of 52.8%, according to Telecompaper’s latest quarterly report on the Dutch Television Market.
Ziggo is struggling to halt the steady decline in cable’s market share, according to the researchers. It’s new Ziggo Sport channel, launched exclusively for Ziggo TV subscribers, is expected to help slow its loss of customers and could provide a boost to growth in digital TV subscribers.
KPN has taken advantage of Ziggo’s difficulties since the cable operator merged with UPC early in 2015. The main challenger on the TV market ended the quarter with 2.199 million subscribers, including 1.795 million over IPTV. On the digital TV market, KPN won 0.5% in the quarter to reach 31 percent of subscribers.
Despite losing customers, Ziggo is still market leader with 4.14 million TV subscribers at the end of September 2015. Its digital TV subscriber base fell for a third consecutive quarter to 3.336 million, good for 48% of the digital TV market.
In total, the Dutch TV market lost 9,000 subscriptions during the quarter to end September 2015 at 7.84 million, of which more than 88% were using digital TV services. Digital TV connections grew by 0.4% during the quarter, while analogue-only subscribers fell by 4.2% compared to June. Telecompaper estimates that the TV services market generated EUR 449 million in revenues in the third quarter of 2015, stable compared with the second quarter.
The reported retail revenues are based on revenues from mass market consumer and SOHO subscriptions. The total includes revenues from basic TV subscriptions (digital/analogue), pay-TV services and video-on-demand services and excludes revenues from installation fees and set-top box sales.
In the five years to 2019, the total TV market is expected to show an average annual decrease of 0.5% in the number of TV subscriptions. Almost all households already have a TV connection and fewer are taking subscriptions for second TVs, in favour of watching video on tablets, computers and other devices. At the same time so-called ‘cord-cutters’ and ‘cord-nevers’ are abandoning traditional TV subscriptions altogether in favour of online video services.
