Streaming services to surpass pay-TV in Latin America in 2020

The streaming war is a global fight, but the next 12 months will be crucial for regional battles in Latin America. Not only will the region receive two new platforms from media big-hitters, capable of going toe-to-toe with hegemon Netflix, but also the number of subscribers to this type of service is set to exceed the traditional pay-TV customer base for the first time in history.

Latin America is expected to end 2020 with 62.2 million subscribers to streaming video services, a 36-percent increase on last year’s figures. Even more impressive are the projections for the near future. By 2024, the region should have 110.7 million users on these platforms — which, in industry jargon, are known as OTT, or over-the-top, a term used to designate the offer of audiovisual content over the internet.

Pay-TV via cable or satellite, in turn, will remain stagnant at its current level of 57 million subscriptions, having plateaued in 2016. This data was passed on to LABS by Ampere Analysis, a market research firm specializing in media, content, and communications.

“Latin America is expected to be the second-fastest-growing region in terms of the proportional increase of the subscriber base in the next 5 years, with the subscriber base more than doubling from 2019 to 2024, second only to Sub-Saharan Africa, where current subscriber numbers and penetration is relatively very low,” says Lottie Towler, senior analyst at Ampere Analysis.

The growth is closely linked to the debut of platforms backed by media and technology giants. The Disney+ service will launch in Latin America in the last quarter of this year, while HBO has identified the region as a priority, set to make it the first market outside the U.S. to receive its new HBO MAX service in 2021.

Both platforms offer huge catalogs to compete with already established services. Netflix is ​​expected to maintain its spot on top of the pile, but the competition it will face...