Cord-cutting isn’t just restricted to traditional U.S. pay TV providers -- total pay TV subscribers are down in 13 other countries/territories.
IHS Markit, a consumer researcher, says
declines in pay TV subscribers occurred in 2017 in Brazil, Mexico, Hong Kong, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Israel, Venezuela and Ireland.
The U.S. still
has the biggest drop, sinking 3.3 million.
Brazil was down 617,000; Mexico, 192,000; Hong Kong, 166,000; Canada, 150,000; Sweden, 144,000; Denmark, 106,000; Japan, 78,000; New Zealand, 61,000;
Norway, 50,000; Singapore, 45,000; Israel, 40,000; Venezuela, 16,000; and Ireland, 3,000.
The biggest percentage decline was in Venezuela -- over 30%. Brazil and Mexico were next at around 6%,
with Japan sinking 5%.
At the same time, IHS Markit estimates cover the next four years: 409 million OTT video subscriptions will be added worldwide with almost two-thirds coming from Asia
Pacific.
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Although there were subscriber losses, only six of the 14 top markets had declines in pay TV revenue.
In eight countries — the U.S., Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Japan, New
Zealand, Norway and Venezuela — pay TV companies either up-sold customers with new products and/or generated existing pay TV package price increases.
IHS Markit says further cord-cutting
will gain steam in North America -- where cord-cutting has seen its biggest effect. It projects a net decline of 8.5 million pay TV subscribers from 2018 through 2022. Between 2012 and 2017, pay TV
subscriptions fell by 7.1 million.
In North America, when including Netflix and all other new digital services, more than 26 million OTT subscriptions were added in 2017.