Unstoppable growth of high definition in Latin America

In just 7 months, the number of pay television operators offering HD services has grown from 36 to 45 in the seven main markets in Latin America.

According to a Dataxis study, the seven largest markets of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela are experiencing significant growth in the number of high definition channels. In these markets, a total of 119 channels are currently broadcast in HD, 86 of which are pay-per-view, and the remaining 33 are free-to-air on digital terrestrial. In just 7 months, the number of pay television operators offering HD services has grown from 36 to 45 operators in these countries.

To give an example, Brazil has gone from having five HD services to eleven per operator in just six months. TV Globo is the first operator in Latin America by number of high definition channels with a total of 12 channels, followed by Time Warner and News Corp. The channels with the greatest distribution are Fox HD, Nat Geo HD, ESPN HD, Discovery HD and Nat Geo Wild HD.

The largest number of high definition channels is found in Mexico with around 27 high definition channels per operator. On average, viewers in the region can access 21 HD channels per country, representing a 20% growth since September last year.