Skip to main content

Pay-TV Sector Reports Global Market Share Transitions

Worldwide pay-TV revenues -- including subscription fees, PPV movies and TV episodes -- for 138 countries will grow by $99 million between 2015 and 2021 to reach $205.92 billion. That follows a 19.5 percent growth rate between 2010 and 2015, according to the latest market study by Digital TV Research.

North American pay-TV revenues will fall by $13.5 billion between 2015 and 2021. Customer decline is responsible for some of this loss, but greater competition and conversion to bundles are more pressing factors. Moreover, the Western Europe region growth will be flat at $31 billion.

"Most of the rest of the world will not follow the North American experience. True, pay-TV revenues will fall in 27 countries between 2015 and 2021, but not to the same extent as in Canada and the U.S. market," said Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research.


Major Shift in Pay-TV Market Development

That being said, most countries are nowhere near the market maturity achieved in North America.

Excluding North America, pay-TV revenues will climb by $13.6 billion (that's up by 14 percent) between 2015 and 2021 to $107.82 billion, having reached $20 billion growth (up by 28 percent) between 2010 and 2015.

North America’s share of the global total will fall from 57.4 percent in 2010 to 54.2 percent in 2015 and 47.6 percent in 2021.

The Asia-Pacific region revenues will grow by $8 billion (up by 25 percent) between 2015 and 2021 to $40 billion. Asia-Pacific already overtook Western Europe in 2014, and will be larger than the whole of Europe by 2019.

Revenues will grow rapidly by 63 percent (up by $2.5 billion) in the Sub-Saharan Africa region and by 26 percent (up by $1.0 billion) in Middle East & North Africa (MENA) between 2015 and 2021. Furthermore, Sub-Saharan Africa will pass MENA in 2016.

Pay-TV revenues in Eastern Europe will be 40 percent higher in 2021 ($5,970 million) than in 2010 ($4,271 million). However, the revenue increase will only be 9.9 percent between 2015 and 2021. Latin America will add a further $1.6 billion (that's up by only 9.1 percent) between 2015 and 2021.

Pay-TV revenues will decline for 27 countries between 2015 and 2021. However, revenues will more than double for a further 19 countries during that period. Most of the fast-growth nations by percentage increase will be in Africa, with Myanmar, Laos, Oman and Bangladesh providing exceptions.

On the upside, India’s pay-TV revenues will climb by $3.5 billion between 2015 and 2021 to $7.8 million, with China up by $1.9 billion to $11.7 billion.

Popular posts from this blog

AI Supercycle: Server Market Growth Surge

The worldwide server market has entered a new phase defined almost entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure economics rather than traditional enterprise refresh cycles.   The latest market data shows robust growth and a structural shift in where value is created, who captures it, and which architectures are setting the pace for the next decade. IDC reports that worldwide server revenue reached a record $112.4 billion in the third quarter of 2025, representing a striking 61 percent year-over-year increase compared to the same quarter in 2024. For context, this means the market is adding tens of billions of dollars in incremental quarterly spend, driven overwhelmingly by AI and accelerated computing requirements.  IT Server Market Development Over the first three quarters of 2025, server revenue has already reached $314.2 billion, meaning the market has nearly doubled in size compared to 2024, underscoring how AI buildouts have compressed several years of exp...