China will surpass Japan in terms of pay-TV revenues making the China the top pay-TV market in Asia and the fifth largest in the world, a research firm said.
An analysis of China’s pay-TV market by SNL Kagan finds that China has long been the world’s largest multichannel market in terms of subscribers and 2011 revenues of $7.5 billion are set to surpass Japan for the first time.
China’s video service revenues grew 31.1% in 2010 to reach $5.8 billion with growth driven by cable digitization and a 9% increase in pay-TV households. Between 2010 and 2015, SNL Kagan forecasts China’s multichannel subscriber base will grow at a 5.8% CAGR to reach 259.5 million households as video service revenues grow at a 20.5% CAGR to $14.7 billion.
SNL Kagan also said despite IPTV gaining momentum, cable continues to dominate China’s pay-TV landscape accounting for 95.7% of multichannel subscribers and 91.2% of video service revenues in 2010.
The research firm added that 47% of China’s cable subscribers had migrated to digital connections by end 2010. In 2011 a further 22.5 million households are expected to adopt digital cable service.
HD services are gaining ground with 2.5 million cable homes adopting the set-top-boxes and packages needed to access HD programming in 2010. By 2015, 17.2 million cable households are forecast to be HD.
VOD is gaining steam with deployments in place at major operators including: Jiangsu BC&TV Network, Shenzhen Topway, Hebei TV Network, Oriental Cable Network, Wasu Digital TV, Shaanxi BC&TV Network, Chongqing Cable Network, and Beijing Gehua.
IPTV accounted for 3.8 % of China’s multichannel subscribers in 2010, with 7.4 million households generating $493.2 million in video service revenues.