Portuguese TV subscribers reach 3.13 million

There were 3.129 million subscribers to pay TV in Portugal at the end of the first quarter, up 7,000 or 0.2% on the previous quarter and 97,000 or 3.2% year-on-year, according to the country’s communications regulator.

Portugal’s Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (ANACOM) said that of these customers, 46.2% were cable TV subscribers, while DTH accounted for 20.7%, xDSL 19.9% and optical fibre 13.2%.

At 1.446 million subscribers, cable customer numbers were down by roughly 20,000 or 1.4% year-on-year. DTH subscriber numbers also dipped year-on-year to 646,000, down 26,000 people or a 3.8% decrease. However, optical fibre customers grew 34.7% year-on-year to 414,000 customers while xDSL was up 6% to 623,000.

The Zon/TV Cabo Group continues to have the largest, though declining, share of subscription TV subscribers at 49.7% – down from 52.2% for the same period last year. PT Comunicações and Cabovisão followed with shares of 39.9% and 7.6% respectively.