21,000 new DTT devices per day

According to data from the latest report from the Impulsa TDT Observatory, during the February-April period it has recorded a monthly sales level of around 600,000 units. In the first four months of 2009, almost three million DTT devices were sold.

Impulsa TDT (Association for the Implementation and Development of Digital Terrestrial Television) has presented the data from the latest report generated by its Observatory that analyzes the current situation of Digital Terrestrial Television in Spain. According to these data, sales of DTT equipment during the first four months of 2009 have risen to almost three million tuners, which represents 16.2% of the total equipment sold to date (18.2 million). Even eliminating the exceptional level of sales in the month of January, estimates put the sales level at 21,000 devices per day.

As important as the high number of these figures is the regularity detected in the acquisition of decoders in recent months. Since February 2009, the number of integrated DTT devices has remained practically stable at around 400,000 units, of which more than 300,000 are televisions with integrated DTT.

This consistency in sales of DTT equipment was joined in the first months of 2009 by an expansion of the level of coverage that already reaches 95.09% of the Spanish population. This increase, above the obligations set by the National Transition Plan, has made it possible for just over a quarter of the households that have adapted to the new television to have done so during the current year, and for the penetration level to have risen in the last month by more than five points, to 58.7% of households.

However, with less than a month until the first analogue cessations begin to take effect and at a time when coverage is effective for some 43.9 million people, the marketing of analogue televisions, that is, not adapted to DTT, continues. According to data from the Observatory, during the first four months of 2009, almost 56,000 units were sold, a fact that Impulsa TDT describes as “inexplicable”, even more so taking into account the obligation of businesses to adequately inform the buyer of an analog television of its early expiration.

On the other hand, according to data from the Sofres audiometer panel, the DTT screen share rose to 31.9% of the total television audience in May. This share figure represents a new historical audience record, motivated by a monthly increase of 3.2 points, the largest ever recorded in the evolution of the digital audience in Spain. In the first five months of 2009, DTT has accumulated an increase of ten net share points, which according to Impulsa TDT, allows us to predict that "next autumn, DTT consumption will surpass the analog option, becoming the main form of access to television."