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[Satellite TODAY Insider 04-26-12] Media Partners Asia (MPA), a leading research firm in Aisa, is forecasting that DTH will grow exponentially in the next 10 years. “Our forecast right now has DTH at more than 11 percent market share. It goes to about 30 percent over the next decade. That is driven by China, but it is (coming from a) utility platform — it’s not a Sky or DirecTV in the making,” Executive Director and Co-owner of the company, Vivek Couto, told Satellite Today Insider. “There is massive growth in China where they have launched this free platform in rural areas. There are now tens of millions of subscribers. But the main story is India, where you will have four platforms emerging as very powerful and profitable gate-keepers; one in Indonesia; one in the Philippines; maybe one in Thailand; maybe one in Vietnam.”
During the last few years there has been highly significant growth in DTH services across the region. India has been a particularly vibrant market, with DTH players such as DishTV, Tata Sky, Airtel and D2H gaining huge numbers of subscribers. Couto believes the active DTH subscriber base in India is now just under 30 million households, however, DTH players don’t necessarily need a strategy in this area just yet. He adds, “In India, they (DTH players) don’t have to look at broadband because fixed broadband is not a big thing in India. Mobile broadband will be the biggest thing in India. But, that will only take off in 2015.”
In other countries, DTH players may have to start looking at adding a broadband component to their strategy. “With the exception of India, other DTH operators across the region after 2015 are going to have to look at how they integrate with broadband, but in Indonesia and the Philippines it’s more of a mobile broadband play. Astro in Malaysia, which is still large, has more of an issue with fiber broadband which is now growing in Malaysia but they have the content and innovation so let’s see where that takes them,” adds Couto.
The resurgence of DTH is lessening cable’s stranglehold in the region. According to the latest MPA research, cable, which accounted for 86 percent of pay-TV subscriptions in 2010, will drop to below 60 percent by 2020. In addition IPTV, which had a 4 percent share in the market in 2010, will increase to 10 percent, still a relatively low figure by 2020.
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