Vietnam driving demand for digital TV solutions

Broadcom Corporation, the US-based chip company, sees Vietnam as a major market for its television technology products. The Southeast Asian country is not only adopting policies to boost digital TV uptake, but is also driving fibre to the home program, which makes it one of the key players for both telecom and Pay TV in the region.

India and China have seen an increase in the demand for innovative solutions for set-top box solutions in the past decade and are expected to boost connected TV market. However, countries such as Vietnam are emerging as top markets for chip companies. One of the major advantages for Vietnam now is that it can afford to leapfrog by adopting higher compression standards such as high efficiency video coding (HEVC) and benefiting from fall in STB prices.

Rajiv Kapur, Broadcom India MD, told NexTV Asia that the company expects Vietnam to be bullish about TV digitisation in the next few years.

“Emerging markets like Vietnam and China hold much potential for the Pay TV market. We see a strong desire to digitize TV in Vietnam, where there is already government support for the process,” Kapur told NexTV Asia. Vietnam is also seeing a rise in demand for hybrid OTT services and connected TV platforms.

Vietnam’s Information and Communication Strategic Institute had announced last year that it would be helping around 14.3 million households upgrade with set top box costs. According to Dataxis Intelligence, HTVC (Ho Chi Minh City Television) has about 135,000 digital cable TV subscribers and about 423,100 basic cable TV customers.

The country is expected to spend as much as VND1.7 trillion (USD 80 million) by 2020 as part of the STB program. VTV Broadcom as well as Digilink have already asked the Vietnamese government to give STB orders to domestic manufacturers to reduce influx of cheap decoders from China.

Asia remains an important market for Broadcom. In March 2015, the semiconductor company announced a series of products for China’s TV market such as the small form-factor DOCSIS 3.0 set-top box (STB) and the BCM7228, which is an HD satellite STB System-on-Chip. Shandong Cable Network’s primary systems integrator, Inspur Group, has also chosen Broadcom’s Ultra HD SoC and Wi Fi SoC for 4Kp60 cable set-top boxes.

“In China, dynamics will drive more innovative services as those markets continue to evolve and see more over-the-top and hybrid platforms,” Kapur told NexTV Asia.

Digital TV homes to double in Latin America

Despite slowing economic growth, the number of digital TV households in Latin America will double by 2020. The Digital TV Latin America Forecasts report estimates 152 million digital TV households by 2020. Digital TV will climb from only 17.9% penetration of TV households at end-2010 to just over the halfway mark by end-2014 and onto 93.6% by 2020.

Central America & Caribbean = Costa Rica, Dominican Rep, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico. Andean = Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela. Southern Cone = Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay

Source: Digital TV Research Ltd.

From the 19 countries covered in the forecasts, Brazil will add 28 million digital TV households during this time frame, with Mexico contributing an extra 11 million and Argentina nearly 5 million more. Puerto Rico was the first country to reach complete conversion to digital – in 2014. Panama and Uruguay will be the only other countries to reach complete digital conversion by 2020.

Primary FTA DTT will overtake pay satellite TV is the leading digital platform in 2016. The number of primary DTT homes will rocket from 4.2 million at end-2010 to 68.0 million by 2020 (giving 41.9% penetration).

Nearly 10 million pay satellite TV households will be added between 2014 and 2020, taking penetration to a quarter of TV households by 2020. However, much of its fast growth has already taken place.

About 18.2 million digital cable subscribers to be added between 2014 and 2020; taking penetration to a fifth of TV households. Conversely, the number of analog cable subscribers will plummet from 18.0 million to 4.3 million. IPTV will climb from 1.3 million subscribers in 2014 to 6.8 million by 2020.

Brazil ($8.6 billion in 2020) will remain the top country by pay TV revenues by some distance, followed by Mexico ($5.6 billion) and Argentina ($2.3 billion) – collectively taking 71% of the total.

Pay TV revenues in Latin America will grow by $2.6 billion between 2014 and 2020. Satellite TV will continue to be the largest pay TV platform, with revenues reaching $16.7 billion in 2020. Cable TV will bring in a further $5.9 billion. Digital cable TV revenues will overtake analog cable in 2014 and IPTV will pass analog cable in 2020.

11 provinces in Thailand will get digital TV

As of June 2014, digital TV will be available in 11 provinces in Thailand. That would amount to nearly half of the country’s entire television population, which now stands at 22 million. The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) has announced that households in these areas will be able to watch digital terrestrial television. 

As April comes, people living in areas like Bangkok, Nakhon Ratchasima, Chiang Mai and Songkhla will be able to access the service. That would include the newly auctioned 24 commercial digital channels as well as channels that fall under public-broadcasting category. In May residents in Ubon Ratchathani, Surat Thani and Rayong will get access and in June residents in Sing Buri, Sukhothai, Khon Kaen and Udon Thani  will get access.

In December, NBTC held auctions for 24 commercial broadcast licences. The licences were sold for a sum of USD 1.5 billion. According to NBTC the channels will start their broadcast from February of this year itself.

Digital TV in Africa

47 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have agreed on the frequency coordination required for digital switchover in 2015, the ITU has confirmed.

The consolidation of national plans is in lines with the deadlines of June 2015 (for UHF) and June 2020 (for VHF in 33 countries) set in 2006 by ITU’s Regional Radiocommunication Conference (RRC-06), which adopted the GE06 TV Plan.

The landmark will allow Africa to become the first region to be in a position to allocate the so-called digital dividend to mobile services for both 700 MHz and 800 MHz bands.

François Rancy, Director of ITU’s Radiocommunication Bureau, announced that sub-Saharan African countries have begun submitting official modifications to the GE06 Plan following the final frequency coordination meeting held in Nairobi during July 2013 and the deadline of August 31 [sic] set for notifications.

“The objective was to enable African countries to allocate the digital dividend to mobile services in the band 694-862 MHz, as a regionally harmonized implementation of the decisions taken at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2012,” Rancy said. “This objective was reached by re-planning the spectrum requirements of television broadcasting in the 470-694 MHz frequency band.”

The influence of the African continent was said by some European broadcasters to be the reason behind the potential loss of broadcast spectrum in Europe to the telecom sector over the next few years.

NBTC gives green signal for 54 digital capable TV sets

Thailand´s National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission has approved 54 television models that come along with digital receivers that are built into their systems. Four brands, Sony, LG, Panasonic and Samsung have been given the permits so far.

As the proposed models come with their own antennas and therefore can receive digital terrestrial signals on their own thus negating the need for STBs to convert signals. LG has 15 of its models approved with Panasonic, Samsung and Sony getting approvals for 13 models each.

As the government has been hard at work to get people to move from analog to digital terrestrial broadcasting, when these units hit the market, people will be given discount coupons to purchase these television sets. The units will be available in the market once NBTC gives the companies permits to import as well as distribute them.

Liberty Media might acquire 25% stake in Airtel Digital TV

American Media and communication firm, Liberty Media is said to be in talks with Bharti Airtel for acquiring 25% of stake in the firm´s DTH satellite business. Market speculations states that Airtel might plan to sell its stake in its unlisted DTH business, as compulsory digitization and higher foreign ownership limit drives the firm to seek capital and market reach.

Bharti has been trying to unload satellite business that has 18% market share and it is said that the firm is keen on selling a larger stake at a higher valuation. Reliance Digital TV, a fully-owned subsidiary of Reliance Communications is also said to be in talks with Sun TV, DTH provider for selling 80% stake to the later.

Indian government´s  digitization mandate has brought in a double digit growth for the DTH players. Other key DTH players are looking to raise capital to support the digitization mandate. Videocon is planning for an IPO; Tata Sky has filed for the same to raise capital to fund their DTH business.