Portugal ended the first half of this year with 4.5 million subscribers to pay-TV services.
According to the regulator ANACOM, this was 117,000 more than in the same period last year but represented the lowest annual growth (+2.6%) since 2014.
Yet despite this, the overwhelming number of families (97.3%) had pay-TV services, with growth being driven by FTTH/B. The latter accounted for 2.8 million subscribers, or 227,000 (+8.7%) more than a year earlier. Yet despite this, FTTH/B had a highest slowdown in growth since the introduction of the technology in 2007. As of the end of H1, FTTH/B accounted for 62.4% of subsribers, followed by cable TV (27.5%), satellite tv/DTH (7.5%) and ADSL (2.5%).
The number of residential pay-TV subscribers reached 4, 088, 000, or more (+2.2%) than in the H1 2022 and represented 88.8% of total subscribers. Non-residential subscribers amounted to 506,000 (11.2% of the total) and registered a growth of 5.9% compared to the same period last year.
The provider with the highest share of pay-TV subscribers was Meo (41.3%), followed by Grupo NosS (36.7%), Vodafone (19.0%) and Nowo (2.8%). MEO and Vodafone were the providers that, in net terms, attracted more subscribers compared to the same period last year, with their shares increasing by 0.5 p.p. and 0.4 p.p. respectively. On the other hand, the shares of Grupo Nos (-0.7 p.p.) and Nowo (-0.3 p.p.) decreased.
In the residential segment, Meo held the highest share (39.8%), followed by Grupo Nos (37.8%), Vodafone (19.2%) and Nowo (3.1%). The shares of Meo and Vodafone increased (+0.5 p.p. in both cases), while the shares of Grupo Nos and Nowo registered decreases (-0.7 p.p. and -0.3 p.p., respectively).
