The number of Dutch TV homes fell to 7.46 million in the third quarter of 2018.
The market share of the merged T-Mobile/Tele2 was 4.8%, giving it a minimal lead over Canal Digitaal and Delta/Caiway, according to Telecompaper’s recent quarterly report on the Dutch television market. Turnover from television services, on the other hand, grew to €472 million in Q3 2018.
Despite a decline of 0.1 percentage points in the third quarter cable was still the largest television technology with 55.7% of connections. DSL (copper) followed as number two with 21.3% share and fibre was number three with 15.9%. Both satellite and Digitenne (the DTT from KPN) had a market share of less than 5% in the third quarter, with satellite being larger than Digitenne.
TV services revenue grew by €6 million in Q3 2018 to €472 million. For the full year 2018 Telecompaper expects sales to grow 1.7% to €1.87 billion, with price increases by KPN, XS4ALL, Telfort, and Ziggo leading to additional growth in Q3 2018, which continues into the fourth quarter.
Further in the future, TV sales are expected to decline from 2020 onwards. This brings the expected average growth to 0.2% in the years up to and including 2022.
Telecompaper expects TV connections to fall by 0.5% in 2018. The acceleration of the decline is partly due to the switch-off of analogue cable television, which Ziggo and Delta have started. In addition, the influence of the so-called cord-nevers and cord cutters is increasing. For the period 2018-2022, Telecompaper expects an average annual decrease of 0.6% in TV connections.
T-Mobile and Tele2, which have just had their merger approved, had a combined market share of 4.8% of the digital TV market, 0.2% more than the combined share of Delta and Caiway, as well as Canal Digitaal.
Ziggo was the largest supplier of TV connections with a 52.2% market share, after a decrease of 0.2 percentage points since Q3 2017. KPN was number two with 31.7%, stable compared to Q2 2018 and also with Q3 2017.
