2016 looks set to be a succesful year for SES after it was announced Wednesday that the TV channels now broadcast over the satellite provider's fleet was up 11.3% in 2015 - a record number.

In the last year, SES' TV channel count grew to 7,268, marking a 11.3% increase at odds with the overall growth of 2% for the rest of the industry. According to the company, the continued introduction of new High Definition (HD) channels across Europe and North America, as well as the extension of SES' Video business across emerging markets, created the parameters for this expansion. Nearly 60% of all SES transmitted channels are now broadcast in the MPEG-4 compression standard.

HDTV channels saw an 18% growth to 2,230, accounting for 31% of the total TV channels served by SES' fleet. The number of HDTV channels carried over satellite for the rest of the industry grew by 13% to around 6,400 channels, according to SES.

Europe provided a 9% increase in total TV channels to just under 2,600, while the total channels in North America was unchanged at about 1,800 channels. The continued penetration of HDTV channels, which require more satellite capacity than Standard Definition (SD) channels, was the principal contributor to growth, as the number of HDTV channels grew by over 25% to nearly 700 channels in Europe and by over 3% to more than 1,200 channels in North America.

The growth of SES’s global channel count has been particularly pronounced in the emerging markets, where the company is successfully expanding its presence in global Video, as a key element of SES’s differentiated strategy. SES now carries close to 2,900 TV channels across a range of fast-growing emerging markets, such as Latin America, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa (40% of the total of channels). This represents a growth of 25% from 2014, when figures stood at just over 2,300 channels, and includes double the amount of HDTV channels to over 300.  

These trends have been a consistent driver in the development of SES’s channel count, which has grown by a compound annual rate of more than 9% per annum over the last three years. Over the same period, the number of HDTV channels broadcast over the SES fleet has increased by a compound rate of nearly 15% each year.

SES was the first satellite operator to introduce Ultra HD in Europe and North America and to secure capacity agreements for Ultra HD, with seven channels to broadcast commercial Ultra HD channels on SES satellites worldwide in 2015.

“With more TV channels than ever before, this confirms SES’s leading role as a TV broadcasting infrastructure and driver of global digitisation, as well as emphasising the essential role of satellite for video distribution,” said Ferdinand Kayser, Chief Commercial Officer of SES. “SES is exceptionally well placed to leverage major growth opportunities, especially in new and emerging markets. Our current launch programme is a dynamic engine for this future growth, delivering a 21% increase in capacity in the emerging markets by the end of 2017. In particular, the launches of SES-9 and SES-10 will drive growth by delivering a total of 80 additional transponders in Asia and Latin America, with important pre-fill rates underwritten by customer agreements. With more and more channels being broadcast in HD quality, and broadcasters entering the era of Ultra HD, 2016 and beyond will see continued growth and accelerated development for SES’s video segment."

 

Photo by SES