According to Digital TV Research, pay TV growth is expected to be sluggish in Latin America through 2021. The research house says satellite TV will continue to be the largest pay TV platform in the region, with revenues reaching $13.1 billion in 2021, up from $12.6 billion in 2015. Cable TV revenues are expected to be $5.6 billion in 2021, up from $5.1 billion in 2015.
Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said: "Digital cable TV revenues overtook analog cable in 2014, and IPTV will pass analog cable by 2020. IPTV revenues will grow by the same amount as satellite TV and cable TV over this period."
Brazil ($7.3 billion in 2021) is expected to remain the top country by pay TV revenues by some distance, followed by Mexico ($3.4 billion) and Argentina ($2.2 billion).
Pay TV penetration is expected to reach 50.6% by 2021, up from 45% at end-2015 and 28.7% at end-2010. This means the addition of 14 million more pay TV homes between 2015 and 2021, taking the total to 82 million. This compares to more than 27 million pay TV subscriber additions between 2010 and 2015.
Brazil is expected to have 4.7 million of the additions between 2015 and 2021 and Mexico 3.7 million. However, that growth is notably slower than between 2010 and 2015, when Brazil added 9.6 million new pay TV subscribers and Mexico added 7.1 million.
Puerto Rico is expected to have 83% pay TV penetration by 2021, with four more countries (Argentina, Honduras, Panama and Venezuela) above 70%. However, five countries (Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru) expected to remain below 40%.
The number of digital pay TV subscribers in the region is expected to increase from 19.5 million in 2010 (13.7% penetration) to 52.3 million in 2015 (34.6%) to 80.9 million in 2021 (49.8%).