VietNamNet Bridge – The pay-TV market is believed to witness big changes in the time to come when a lot of merger and acquisition (M&A) deals are made and announced.

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) has stated that it would re-arrange the pay-TV market and become choosy in licensing. Only the enterprises with the good network infrastructure and good investment capability would get the license to provide services.

This means that the small cable TV firms would not be able to exist. They would have to merge into others or cooperate with others to meet the MIC’s requirements.

In late 2012, the Vietnam Cable & Electronics JSC (CEC) had to transfer 20,000 cable TV subscribers to VCTV, now VTVcab – a subsidiary of the Vietnam National Television.

The reason that forced CEC to leave its clients was the ineffective investments, because of which CEC incurred big debts. By that time, the total bank debt of CEC had reached VND100 billion.

CEC is no longer on the pay-TV market.

A lot of other cable TV firms, which have small scale and limited service providing area, are believed to follow CEC.

Cable TV is the first type of pay-TV provided in Vietnam in 1993 when MMDS service was officially launched in HCM City. After 20 years of development, the number of analog cable TV subscribers now accounts for 65 percent of the total 4.5 million pay-TV subscribers, estimated at 2.9 million.

There are more than 40 TV service providers nationwide, but the market has been controlled by a few big service providers.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Competition Administration Department, the biggest slices of the pay-TV cake are now in the hands of the three big guys SCTV, VTVcab and HCM City Television’s Cable TV Center.

By the end of December 2012, SCTV had reportedly held 40 percent of the market share, VTVcab 30 percent and the HCM City Cable TV Center 15 percent.

This means that the majority of other service providers share the modest market share of 15 percent. Most of the service providers are very small and provide cable TV services.

According to the MIC, by the end of 2011, Vietnam had had 40 pay-TV service providers, from cable, satellite, digital terrestrial to IPTV, mobile TV services.

By the end of 2012, some small scaled cable TV firms voluntarily merged into each other, thus lowering the number of cable televisions to 26, while 19 have applied for the operation licenses as stipulated in legal documents.

Of the 19 firms, only several ones provide service within one province or city with the number of subscribers at over 55,000, and 4-5 firms providing services within two or more provinces and cities with over 100,000 subscribers. The others are very small with less than 10,000 subscribers.

In the latest news, MIC is going to grant license to VTC, allowing it to provide cable TV nationwide. Once this happens, the total number of cable televisions which can provide service throughout the country would rise to five.

VTC is one of the three satellite TV service providers. It has been providing digital terrestrial TV service for the last 10 years with the coverage having reached to 47 cities and provinces.

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