Based on data for 138 countries, Digital TV Research estimates that the global pay TV industry added 254 million subscribers (up by 35%) between 2010 and 2016 to take the global total to 969 million.
The research house says digital cable TV created the most additions by platform at 256 million between 2010 and 2016. However, analog cable TV lost 218 million subscribers, dampening overall cable gains. There were 76 million extra subs for IPTV to nearly quintuple its total. Satellite TV added 77 million and pay digital terrestrial TV (DTT) 5 million.
Excluding analog cable TV, digital pay TV climbed from 380 million subscribers in 2010 to 852 million at end-2016.
Asia Pacific is the world's largest pay TV subscriber region, with 60% of the global total. China has about a third of the world's pay TV subscribers, with 313 million by end-2016.
Pay TV subscriber counts doubled in 53 countries between 2010 and 2016, but fell in nine countries, with the United States down by 4.4 million and Italy by 2.3 million.