Digital TV forecast to boom in Africa

Digital TV households in Sub-Saharan Africa will quadruple in the period to 2018, according to new research.

Digital TV Research forecasts that digital penetration will rocket from 35% at end-2012 to 95.5% by end-2018, by which point there will be 49 million digital TV homes on the continent.

Sub-Saharan pay TV revenues will reach $4.62 billion in 2018, up from US$2.88 billion in 2012. DTH accounted for nearly all of the 2012 total, though pay DTT will make inroads, contributing US$744 million in 2018.

By territory, South Africa will remain the dominant pay TV revenue generator, the research suggests. However, its share of the total will fall from 61% in 2012 to 47% in 2018.

Excluding South Africa, pay TV revenues will rocket from $1.12 billion in 2012 to $2.46 billion in 2018.

Two-thirds of television homes will take free or pay DTT services by end-2018, up from only 11.7% at end-2012. Sub-Saharan Africa will have 33.8 million DTT homes by 2018 – 25.7 million FTA and 8.0 million pay – up from 4.6 million in total at end-2012.

Report author Simon Murray said: “Even we have been surprised by the pace of change and progress in the region’s television market in the year since the last edition of this report.