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Asia Pacific to add 440 million digital TV homes by 2017

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Asia Pacific is undergoing a digital TV boom that will see penetration increase from 36 percent in 2011 to 83 percent in 2017 – or up by 440 million homes, according to a new report from Digital TV Research. Digital TV Asia Pacific forecasts that China alone will provide 268 million of the additional digital TV homes, with India adding 82 million.

Of the 440 million digital homes to be added between 2011 and 2017, 103 million will come from DTT. Digital cable will contribute a further 195 million, with pay DTH supplying 34 million more and pay IPTV, 86 million. By contrast, the region will lose 152 million analog cable homes and 196 million analog terrestrial ones.

While China will provide 315 million pay TV households, and India supplying a further 145 million, pay TV penetration will still be higher in South Korea (93 percent) and Singapore (90 percent). Legitimate pay TV penetration, meanwhile, will be lowest in Indonesia (23 percent) and the Philippines (27 percent).

Pay TV revenues in the Asia Pacific will be US$11.7 billion higher in 2017 (US$40.7 billion total) than in 2011. Japan (US$10.6 billion) will remain the market leader in 2017, followed by China (US$9.7 billion) and India (US$7.1 billion). However, pay TV revenues will be flat in New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.

Cable TV will remain the highest earner, with revenues at US$23.6 billion by 2017. Digital cable TV revenues will climb by 137 percent between 2011 and 2017 to US$21.2 billion. Although cable penetration will be 44.7 percent by 2017, almost unchanged from 44.4 percent at end-2011, the number of digital subs will nearly triple over the same period to nearly 332 million.

The number of homes paying for IPTV will reach 110 million by 2017 – or 12.8 percent of TV households. IPTV subs will overtake pay DTH ones in 2013, and about 34 million pay DTH homes will be added between 2011 and 2017 taking the total to 76 million.

Also, the number of primary DTT households (homes not subscribing to cable, DTH or IPTV but taking DTT) will rocket from 30 million (4 percent penetration) at end-2011 to 133 million (15.5 percent) by 2017. China will provide 84 million of the 2017 total, followed by Japan with 10 million and India with 9 million.