According to Grand View Research, the global pay TV market is expected to reach $254.77 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 2.1%. The development of new platforms based on satellite and cable distribution technologies, coupled with wider options of content as compared to traditional free-to-air terrestrial broadcasters, has driven the pay TV market growth.
The move to digital from analog delivery methods has been a key trend among traditional TV platforms since digitization offers less constraint on the number of channels made available to viewers. The last few years have witnessed a gradual transition in the viewing preferences toward a medium where content is available on demand and in a device-agnostic manner.
The pay TV market is projected to grow significantly in Asia Pacific and some parts of Latin America, such as Brazil. On the other hand, the market has already reached maturity in most parts of the United States and the UK. This may be attributed in part to the preference of viewers in these countries to opt for OTT services such as Netflix, YouTube Originals, Amazon Prime and Hulu.
Prominent IPTV operators have started employing new delivery architectures for addressing the threat posed by OTT providers. Set-top boxes, media players and gaming consoles have been increasingly used for the efficient delivery of native broadcast channels, making them accessible to viewers over closed IP networks.
Other findings indicate:
- In terms of number of subscribers, the IPTV subscription segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 8% over the forecast period.
- Satellite TV is expected to continue being the preferred pay TV medium for a large portion of viewers globally.
- In 2016, the Asia Pacific region accounted for the largest revenue share of the global pay TV industry with a large number of subscribers in India and China.
- OTT is emerging as a favored medium of consuming content, particularly in the United States, the UK and Germany.