Mexico. The results of the Population and Housing Census in Mexico 2020, conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, INEGI, reveal a great perspective on the availability and access to information technologies and telecommunications services in homes throughout the country.
The continuous evolution and development of devices, as well as a greater offer of Subscription Video Services (SVOD) platforms such as Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, HBO, etc., have generated strong competitive pressures on the Free-to-Air television and Pay TV segment.
According to statistics from The CIU, as of the third quarter of 2020, there are 10.6 million subscriptions to SVOD platforms. In addition, the main device of access to these platforms by the user is through the smartphone (95%) followed by the TV (88%). These figures could make us think that Mexican users have begun to quickly replace, like developed countries, technologies such as free-to-air TV and Pay-TV in favor of streaming.
However, the 2020 Census of the INEGI, reveals that open television, as well as Pay TV continue to maintain its relevance in the daily life of people in the country, since between 2010 and 2020 the availability of television in homes fell only 1.5 percentage points from 92.6% to 91.1%. As for Pay TV services, 43.3% of homes have this service.
Additionally, the results of the census reveal that the vast majority of households (68.7%) that have pay TV service do not have SVOD services, subscription of movies, music or paid videos online. While only 13.6% of homes have both services, that is, they have adopted a complementarity between these services. Only 5.3% of homes have found in streaming the perfect substitute to access a greater diversity and offer of local and international content available on these platforms.
The socioeconomic backwardness of large regions of the country is an obvious cause of the digital divide between states, regarding access to internet or broadband services. Therefore, open and pay television continue to be the most accessible entertainment medium for Mexicans compared to OTT services, since it is much more expensive to have the subscription to the platform, the internet service and have a device compatible with the reproduction of streaming services than to contract the Pay TELEVISION service directly with a provider.
It is important to remember that, when analyzing for countries with socioeconomic characteristics like ours, the trends we see in developed countries do not always work with the same trend and temporality.
Text written by Gonzalo Rojon of The Competitive Intelligence Unit, CIU.
