Executive Summary
TV subscribers grew by 3.0% and 94% of families enjoy this service
In the first quarter of 2022 (1Q2022), 94.0% of households were provided with the pay-TV signal distribution service (PTV), up 0.4 percentage points (p.p.) from the same quarter of the previous year. Growth in residential penetration of this service has been slowing since the end of 2020, reaching in this quarter the lowest value since this indicator was first collected (2018).
The number of subscribers to the pay-TV signal distribution service was 4.4 million, 126 thousand more (+3.0%) than in the same period of the previous year, the lowest percentage growth since the end of 2014.
Fibre optic with 58% of pay-TV subscribers
Service growth was due to offers supported on fibre optic cables (FTTH), which registered 281 thousand more subscribers than in the same quarter of the previous year (+12.4%), reaching 2.5 million subscribers. This growth resulted not only from the addition of new customers, but also from the switching to FTTH of customers that were previously supported on other networks.
FTTH has been the main form of access to this service since 2018. In 1Q2022, FTTH accounted for 58.0% of total subscribers, followed by cable TV (29.1%), satellite TV (?) DTH (8.9%) and ADSL (4.1%).
Provider shares
In 1Q2022, MEO was the provider with the highest share of pay-TV signal distribution subscribers (40.7%), followed by the NOS Group (37.6%), Vodafone (18.5%) and NOWO (3.2%). Vodafone and MEO were the providers which, in net terms, attracted the most subscribers in comparison to the same period of the previous year, having increased their shares by 0.9 p.p. and 0.4 p.p. respectively. On the other hand, the shares of the NOS Group (-0.9 p.p.) and NOWO (-0.3 p.p.) decreased.
In the residential segment, MEO held the highest share (39.2%), followed by the NOS Group (38.6%), Vodafone (18.7%) and NOWO (3.5%). Vodafone and MEO’s shares increased (+0.8 p.p. and +0.3 p.p., respectively), while the NOS Group and NOWO’s shares registered decreases (-0.8 p.p. and -0.3 p.p., respectively).
The level of concentration, measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman index, although high, decreased slightly compared to the previous quarter. The current trend towards lower concentration began in 2013, with the launch of Vodafone’s triple play offer supported on FTTH. There have been no significant changes in concentration levels since 2015.
