The number of subscribers receiving pay-TV via fibre in Portugal has passed the one million mark.
According to figures published by the regulator ANACOM, it stood at 1.075 million at the end of 2016, 28.6% more than a year earlier and the highest ever recorded.
Thanks largely to fibre, the total number pay-TV subscribers in the country increased by 145,000 to 3.67 million in 2016.
At the end of 2016, fibre accounted for 28.8% of total subscribers, up 5.5 percentage points on 12 months earlier. Cable remained in first place on 36.7%, maintaining the same number of subscribers (1.347 million) as a year earlier, while third placed xDSL lost 9.5%, ending the year with 678,000 subscribers and a market share of 18.5%. DTH had a share of 16.1%, down 3% on a year earlier.
ANACOM notes that the growth rate of pay-TV subscribers in 2016 was, at 4.1%, identical to the average of the last five years. The overwhelming majority (90.4%) had their pay-TV service integrated into a package, while pay-TV penetration at year’s end stood at 90%, up 3.6 percentage points on 12 months earlier.
In terms of programming, 79.7% of pay-TV subscribers had access to more than 80 channels. The share of households watching premium channels fell by 3.3 percentage points to 15.3%, while 73% (+6pp) used advanced features of pay-TV services.
Significantly 4.1% of individuals aged 10+ subscribed to a streaming on demand service such as Netflix, FoxPlay or NPlay.
In 2016, total pay-TV revenues amounted to around €1.8 billion, or 8.5% more than a year earlier.
NOS had the most subscribers (43.5%), followed by Meo (38.9%), Vodafone (12.8%) and Nowo (4.3%). Vodafone was the only company to see both its subscriber total and market share increase in 2016.
