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[Satellite News - 5-1-08] Media Partners Asia believes the direct-to- home (DTH) market in Asia will grow to around 44 million customers throughout the region by 2012.

Satellite pay-TV services are on the rise in the region. "DTH subscriber growth accelerated to 27 percent in 2007 versus 16 percent in 2006, with total customers reaching 14.3 million," according to "Asia Pacific Pay-TV and Broadband Markets 2008," which looks at all areas of the communications and pay-TV markets in Asia.

The growth was due to emerging platforms in India as well as "robust subscriber growth" in Malaysia, Australia, Thailand and Indonesia. However, while the market is strong in emerging markets, in some markets in the region some DTH platforms are seeing declining subscriber growth as competition with other digital TV operators heats up. This is the case in markets such as Korea and Japan. However, some developed markets such as Malaysia and Australia are still seeing strong subscriber growth.

Media Partners believes there will be 61 million DTH customers in the region by 2017, with India fueling most of the growth and accounting for half of the subscribers. By 2017, more than 32.3 million homes will receive digital pay- TV services through DTH in India, 22 million through cable and less than 3 million. through IPTV. MPA also expects consolidation in the Indian DTH market, with the six companies expected to be operating by 2009 to decline to three platforms the long term..

Other markets to look out for include Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Australasia, where DTH services are expected to grow strongly throughout the next few years.

Media Partners expects India to grow from 2.5 percent DTH penetration of TV homes at the end of 2007 to just less than 17 percent at the end of 2017. Indonesia will go from 1 percent DTH penetration of TV homes at the end of 2007 to more than 14 percent at the end of 2017.