Asia-Pacific pay TV subscription declines, revenue growth improves in 2024

In the 2024 edition of the Asia Pacific multichannel outlook, S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan saw a slight decline in the region's overall traditional pay TV subscription, mirroring the continuous drop in household penetration since 2020.

Key 2024 pay TV market highlights in the Asia-Pacific region:

• The region’s multichannel subscriber base experienced a marginal decrease of 0.03% year over year, reaching about 659.5 million. Similarly, household penetration was down from 62.9% in 2023 to 61.5% in 2024. On the other hand, pay TV revenue increased by 3.1% over the same period, to $30.3 billion in 2024 as operators concentrated on delivering premium services. Average blended broadband ARPU slightly increased at an estimated $3.83 per month in 2024 from $3.72 in 2023.
• Several markets recorded subscription losses, including Australia, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, and Taiwan. South Korea, Hong Kong, mainland China, and much of Southeast Asia are still experiencing growth in the traditional multichannel sector.
• Subscriptions for the dominant platform — cable TV — declined by 1.8% year over year to 326.9 million in 2024, while direct-to-home and fixed wireless TV subscriptions decreased by 1.3% and 5.7%, respectively. Subscriptions grew at 2.9% for IPTV and 10.3% for pay-digital terrestrial TV from 2023 to 2024.
• India contributed the lion's share of DTH subscribers, boasting 60.6 million at year-end 2024. However, the DTH sector in India lost 2.2% of subscribers in 2024.
• In Pakistan, with new DTH licensees missing the anticipated launch dates, cable TV still dominated the market's multichannel landscape with an estimated 94.5% share of total pay TV subscribers. In addition, Pakistan was the only market in Asia-Pacific providing fixed-wireless TV service with around 394,200 customers in 2024.
• DTT subscription services were still available on a limited scale in smaller and underdeveloped markets including Myanmar, Nepal, and Vietnam.
• Mainland China has the largest IPTV subscriber base globally, providing IPTV service to over 189.9 million subscribers in 2024.
• Kagan analysis shows that pay TV was most affordable in mainland China, where multichannel affordability was only 0.1% in 2024. In contrast, Cambodia had the highest pay TV costs, with multichannel affordability at 1.2%.

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