Dataxis: global pay TV subscribers up 60m in a year

The global number of pay TV subscribers climbed by 60 million between Q2 2016 and Q2 2017, driven by growth in Asia Pacific, according to Dataxis.

The research firm said that global pay TV subscribers reached 1.05 billion in the second quarter of 2017, having crossed the one billion mark during 2016.

The Asia-Pacific TV market grew by 8% quarter-over-quarter and was among the highest growing pay TV markets in terms of subscribers, according to the research.

However, all other regions experienced pay TV subscriber growth of between 1% and 4% quarter-on-quarter, apart from North America which experienced declines.

China and India together accounted for 48% of the world’s pay TV subscribers for the second quarter of 2017, said Dataxis.

In terms of technology, most growth came from IPTV and linear OTT with quarter-on-quarter growth of 24% and 44% respectively – although linear OTT still only represents only 1% of the global pay TV market. Cable TV showed negative growth while DTH and DTT were stagnant.