The worldwide pay TV market grew 4% in 2014 to reach 923.5 million subscribers, according to ABI Research.
Jake Saunders, VP and practice director of core forecasting at ABI Research, said despite the growth in subscriber base, weak currency exchange rates resulted in a slower increase of pay TV market service revenue.
“Worldwide the pay TV market generated $257 billion in 2014 and is expected to surpass 1.1 billion subscribers in 2020 with a CAGR 2.7%,” said Saunders.
Cable and terrestrial TV markets had weaker growth rates in 2014 compared to satellite and IPTV platforms. However, high definition (HD) penetration is increasing across all pay TV platforms because of the increasing number of HD channels added by operators.
In 2014, 44% of the worldwide pay TV subscriber base was made up of HD subscribers, with the highest HD penetration in Western Europe and North America. HD penetration is expected to reach 60% of the total pay TV market in 2020.
ABI Research forecasts that the global pay TV market will generate $313 billion in service revenues by 2020.
Meanwhile, ABI Research noted that pay TV operators are also moving towards delivering 4K or ultra HD services.
In November, US satellite operator DirecTV launched its first 4K programming without any additional monthly charges to subscribers. Online video streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon also started to offer 4K content in late 2014.