Diverging Fortunes of IPTV and Cable TV... Subscriber Gap Widens to 6.33 Million

Ministry of Science and ICT Announces Paid Broadcasting Subscribers and Market Share for First Half of 2021
Total Subscribers 35.11 Million... Up 524,000 from Second Half of Last Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunmo Koo] The fortunes of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and System Operators (SO) have diverged once again. While IPTV continued its subscriber growth, SO showed a decline, widening the subscriber gap between the two services to over 6 million. Among operators, KT maintained its position as the number one paid broadcasting market leader.

The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced on the 10th the finalized results of the subscriber count survey, verification, and market share calculation for SO, satellite broadcasting, and IPTV for the first half of this year.

As of the first half of this year, the total number of paid broadcasting subscribers was 35,107,369 (6-month average), an increase of 520,000 compared to the second half of last year. The subscriber growth rate slightly decreased compared to the 640,000 increase in the second half of last year.

Looking at the 6-month average number of subscribers by media, IPTV had 19,003,971 subscribers (54.13%), raising its market share by 1.34 percentage points compared to six months ago, while SO had 13,044,615 subscribers (37.16%), with its market share falling by 1.1 percentage points. Satellite broadcasting was recorded at 3,058,783 subscribers (8.71%).

Since November 2017, when IPTV surpassed SO in subscriber numbers, IPTV has continued to grow, while SO has declined, expanding the subscriber gap between IPTV and SO to approximately 6.33 million as of the end of December last year.

By operator, KT held the top spot in the paid broadcasting market with 8,141,601 subscribers (23.19%). SK Broadband (IPTV) had 5,797,602 subscribers (16.51%), LG Uplus 5,064,768 subscribers (14.43%), LG HelloVision 3,809,925 subscribers (10.85%), KT Skylife 3,058,783 subscribers (8.71%), and SK Broadband (SO) 2,901,301 subscribers (8.26%).

The combined subscriber count of KT and KT Skylife was 11.2 million, LG Uplus and LG HelloVision combined had 8.87 million subscribers, and SK Broadband (IPTV and SO combined) had 8.7 million subscribers, accounting for 31.9%, 25.28%, and 24.77% market shares respectively in the paid broadcasting market.

By subscriber type, individual subscribers numbered 16,596,547 (47.27% market share), multiple subscribers 16,030,088 (45.66%), and group subscribers 2,479,834 (7.06%).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.