Optical fibre (FTTH/B) became the principal means of accessing the subscription television distribution service in the first half of 2018, with 1.47 million subscribers, 38.2% of the total. Cable, with 34 million subscribers (34.9% of the total), is followed by satellite (DTH), with 13.6% of customers. ADSL was used by only 13.4% of customers. Offers supported over FTTH/B were the only type to report an increase over the six-month period (24.1%).
At the end of June there were around 3.9 million subscription TV customers in Portugal, 131 thousand more than at the end of June 2017. The growth in the service was due to optical fibre offers (FTTH/B), which added 286 thousand subscribers compared to the end of June 2017.
Grupo NOS had the highest share of subscribers (41.9%), followed by MEO (38.9%), Vodafone (14.7%) and NOWO (4.4%). MEO was the provider that gained most subscribers in net terms, compared to the first half of 2017.
At the end of the first half of 2018, according to the Marktest's Barómetro de Telecomunicações (Telecommunications Barometer) about 15.4% of households with subscription television services had access to premium channels (an increase of 0.4 percentage points from the first half of 2017), while 78.4% of subscribers had more than 100 channels (an increase of 5.2 percentage points).
In the first half of the year, use of the service's features increased by 1.2 percentage points over the first half of 2017, with about 74.4 percent of subscribers reported as using at least one of the features available. Automatic recordings were the most commonly used service, followed by channels in high definition, the TV programme guide and manual recordings.
The Telecommunications Barometer also indicates that, in the first half of 2018, 8.1% of individuals aged 10 years and over had a subscription to on-demand video streaming services (i.e., Netflix, Fox Play, Nplay or Amazon Prime Video) increasing 3.6 percentage points over the same period of 2017.
Meanwhile, about 84.3% of households had a subscription television service.
Consult the statistical report:
- Subscription television signal distribution service - 1st half 2018 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1463689
