Local game, global players
International corporations dominate the Chilean pay TV market. Altogether, Liberty Global, AT&T, Telefónica, and América Móvil concentrated over 80% of all subscriptions in September 2021. That same month, Liberty and América Móvil announced the merger of their local operations in Chile, known as VTR and Claro, respectively. The holdings projected that the new joint venture would serve six million households by 2025. The move may boost the results of both telco providers. VTR's pay TV revenue has trended down since 2019. Meanwhile, América Móvil's overall revenue in the Southern Cone – as the company refers to Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, collectively – added up to 56.7 billion Mexican pesos in 2020. This was less than six percent of the holding's total revenue.Is pay TV declining in Chile?
It was forecast that Chile would be home to 3.22 million pay TV subscribers by 2025 and that this figure was likely to decrease from then on. The estimate arguably takes into account the skyrocketing popularity of subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) platforms. But it does not necessarily reflect the latest trends in consumer behavior in the South American country. The average daily time Chilean viewers spent watching pay TV peaked in 2020. Regardless of the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on media consumption that year, the figure had already increased between 2018 and 2019. Another indicator that has trended up is that of the consumer trust in internet and cable companies in Chile. Yet the trust level remained below 50 percent in November 2021, suggesting that providers still needed to work harder on impressing clients and potential customers.
