Thai pay TV market to recover from Covid decline in 2021

The Thai pay TV market is set to recover from a difficult 2020 in the coming year.

According to GlobalData, the Southeast Asian country saw an 8.7% dip in revenue in 2020 as users curtailed their spending amidst the Covid-19-triggered economic recession.

However, as the nation recovers from the pandemic, so too will its pay TV industry, with the market set to post an 8% growth in revenue in 2021. The majority of growth will be seen in IPTV services, with this sector set to overtake DTH subscriptions as the dominant pay TV subscription method.

The report goes as far as 2025, though the CAGR will slow after an initial upturn in 2021 to a rate of 1.1% over the forecast period. Overall, pay TV subscriptions are predicted to increase from under 7 million in 2020 to more than 9 million in 2025.

The shares of both cable TV and DTH will continue to shrink as IPTV increases in dominance. IPTV subscriptions are expected to increase at a CAGR of 24.8% over the forecast period, indicating that much of the activity in the Thai pay TV industry will be from users transferring their custom to such services.

Anshika Gandotra, telecom analyst at GlobalData, said: “IPTV subscriptions will surpass DTH subscriptions in 2021 and will be the leading platform to deliver pay-TV services in the country through the forecast period. Growth in IPTV subscriptions will be driven by the growing demand for multi-play bundled plans with integrated IPTV services and high-quality content offered by IPTV service providers.

“Thailand’s pay-TV market is highly fragmented with several regional players jointly accounting for the majority share of pay-TV subscriptions in 2020, reflecting low entry barriers for operators in the market. TrueVision (TrueCorp) accounted for the largest share of the total pay-TV subscriptions in 2020 with a strong presence in the Cable TV and IPTV segments.”