Pay-TV lags behind in Peru’s telecom sector
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Juan Fernandez Gonzalez
| 29 June 2017

Market concentration and service quality are hindering the competitiveness of pay-TV in Peru accorindg to the country’s telecoms watchdog.

By the end of Q1 2017, competition across every telecom market had improved, on average, by 18% year-on-year, revealed the*Organismo Supervisor de Inversión Privada en Telecomunicaciones*(OSIPTEL). Since 2012, Peru’s watchdog has calculated a competitiveness index measuring quality, prices and concentration of pay-TV, fixed broadband and mobile telecoms.

However, the average numbers obscure somewhat the reality of Peruvian pay-TV. In a highly concentrated market in which some players don’t even send the proper statistical information to the regulator, the competitiveness index has remained flat over the last exercises.

“Pay-TV service shows unstable figures, especially regarding quality and concentration,” pointed out the watchdog’s report. “Operators keep constantly changing the number of channels included in their offerings, which affects quality, and some players don’t publish any data, influencing concentration.”

According to the latest available figures, Peru is one of Latin America’s most concentrated pay-TV markets. Telefónica’s*Movistar TV brand owns nearly seven in ten subscribers..

Compared with pay-TV, both fixed broadband and mobile markets have improved their competitiveness. Mobile telecoms’ index grew by 30% in the same period while the figures for cable- and fibre-based Internet services increased by 25%.