According to a recent research carried out by Digital TV Research, pay tv penetration in North Africa (and the Middle east) will reach 73.8% by the end of 2014, which is significant improvement compared to 64.3% in 2010; and 57.1% in Sub-Saharan Africa which is expected to experience massive improvement when compared with its 19.2% penetration value in 2010.
In actual numbers, according to the reported research, the Middle east and Africa will record a total of about 89.3 million pay tv subscribers by the end of 2014 (it was previously 32.4 million households in 2010) with about 12.4 million households coming from this year alone. This year will also see free-to-air satelite tv become the most popular digital tv platform in Africa. Pay IPTV also seems to be growing rapidly and should overtake digital cable and analog cable by 2015.
Image: Digital TV Research
Of the expected 89.3 million digital households from the Middle East and Africa, 60.3 million will come from the Middle East and North Africa, while 28.9 million will come from Sub-Saharan Africa which is nearly four times its recorded value in 2010 (7.9 million).
The significant additions this year are expected to come from Nigeria (7.2 million), Turkey (2.9 million), South Africa (2.5 million) and Kenya (2.2 million).
It is also speculated that 113 million households (46%) accross the region will not have a TV set by the end of 2014.