Global pay-TV penetration will see its first yearly decline in 2024 following a peak of 60.3% in Q4 2023.
Moreover, according to the latest research from Ampere Analysis, by 2028 it will have fallen by almost four percentage points.
Ampere notes that in North America, pay-TV penetration has almost halved from a high of 84% in 2009 to 45% in 2023 caused by a combination of high costs and competition from a mature SVOD market. Despite this decline, the annual revenue generated per user will sit at over $1,100 in 2023 across North America, the highest across any region.
Latin America has also shown large declines in penetration since 2016.This is largely led by Brazil, which has posted a drop of roughly 10 percentage points since its peak pay-TV penetration of 42% in 2016.
Furthermore, although North America and Latin America are driving this shift, all regions will be in pay-TV penetration decline by 2025.
Meanwhile, Asia Pacific and Europe have seen the highest penetration growth in recent years, with large gains coming from China Mobile after it acquired an IPTV license in 2018. This growth has mostly been driven by low-cost IPTV services, which are often bundled into broadband packages for a low or nominal cost. While these regions will also fall into decline after 2025, there are still some growth markets, such as Portugal, Serbia and Hungary, which are expected to see further growth in the forecast period.
