Mexico’s Grupo Televisa has consolidated its dominant position in the country’s pay TV market by acquiring for $378.6 million the 50% stake in cable operator TVI it did not already own. This means it can now count over 10 million pay TV subscribers in Mexico, around 60% of the 17.41 million recorded by regulator Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (IFT) for the third quarter of 2015, the latest available data. This includes the 6.7 million subscribers attributed to satellite operator Sky Mexico in which America Movil has a 58.7% stake, the other 41.3% being held by DirecTV, in turn now part of AT&T.
There are two other major players in the country’s pay TV market, one being DTH operator Dish Mexico, 49% owned by EchoStar of the US and 51% by Mexican media conglomerate MVS Comunicaciones (MVS), with 2.91 million subs. The other is independent all-Mexican owned cable operator Megacable with 2.65 million subs at the end of 2015 Q3.
Televisa itself has been busy over the last few years mopping up the rest of Mexico’s pay TV field apart from Megacable with acquisitions of Cablevisión México, Cablemas, Cablecom and Telecable, which are mostly listed separately by IFT as they are in the process of being consolidated. As the dominant force Televisa has been buoyed both by accelerating recent growth in pay TV and recent completion of analog to digital switchover, which has provided added impetus.
Mexico has taken over from Brazil as the engine of Latin American pay TV after languishing in second place for some years. Brazil still has the most subscribers, but a smaller proportion of households, as a result of which penetration expanded rapidly for some years with the total doubling between 2010 and 2014. But in 2015 the Brazilian base actually shrank from 19.65 million to 19.39 million over the calendar year according to regulator Anatel, as a result of an acute economic slowdown.
By contrast Mexican growth accelerated significantly with the base growing 1.81 million year-on-year to reach 17.4 million by the end of Q3 2015. At this rate Mexico will re-overtake Brazil within 18 months, having been ahead a few years ago.
Televisa, along with its rival Dish Mexico, has also been benefiting from the transition to digital broadcasting at the end of 2015, which meant the remaining 3.1 million analog subscribers had to either buy a converter box or sign up for a pay TV service. Early indications are that a good number have done the latter, which is boosting the base further.