Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. (TV): 5 FORCES Analysis [Nov-2025 Updated]

Honestly, mapping out the near-term risks and opportunities for Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. (TV) requires a sharp look at the forces shaping their business right now. You see the internal wins-like cutting OpEx by about 7% and controlling their own content, which helps manage supplier power-but the external pressures are intense, especially with customer power being high due to low switching costs, evidenced by the 329,000 revenue-generating unit loss in the Sky segment during Q3 2025. We need to see how their disciplined, reduced CapEx budget of $600 million and the low threat from new entrants balance against the fierce rivalry in the Mexican cable market, where segment revenue fell 4.4% in Q3 2025, and the constant tug-of-war with OTT substitutes like ViX, which already has over 10 million subscribers. Dive in below to see the full, force-by-force breakdown that will shape your investment thesis.

Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. (TV) - Porter's Five Forces: Bargaining power of suppliers

When you look at Grupo Televisa, S.A.B.'s supplier power, you see a clear split: strong leverage over the general operational suppliers, but a constant, high-stakes battle for the truly exclusive, premium content that drives viewership.

The company demonstrated significant leverage over its general suppliers in 2025. You saw this play out when they announced a reduction in the capital expenditure (CapEx) budget for the year. They trimmed the guidance by 9.8%, moving the target from $665 million down to $600 million. Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega, the CEO, was clear: this was achieved mainly because they had successful negotiations with suppliers, resulting in more favorable terms. That's real purchasing power at work.

This leverage isn't just about CapEx; it's about operational discipline, too. The cost control efforts show that for non-content operational spend, suppliers feel the pressure. For the first nine months of 2025, the year-on-year operating expense (OpEx) reduction was around 7%. This disciplined execution contributed to total savings of about $300 million at TelevisaUnivision alone, pushing the consolidated operating segment income margin up to 38.2%.

Here's a quick look at how internal control mitigates external supplier power in the content space:

For generic equipment or technology providers, Grupo Televisa, S.A.B.'s sheer scale in its operations-passing approximately 20 million homes with its network as of late September 2025-gives it high leverage to demand better pricing. They are a massive buyer, and that volume helps drive down the cost of the necessary infrastructure.

However, you can't ignore the other side of the coin. The bargaining power of suppliers becomes high when it comes to truly exclusive, premium content, especially major sports rights that are not already owned. While Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. owns most of its content, securing or retaining the rights to top-tier, must-have programming-like specific league packages or major international events-still involves intense bidding wars where the rights holder has the upper hand. The unification of the content officer role is partly a defensive move to better manage the windowing and monetization of their owned assets, but it doesn't eliminate the need to negotiate for external premium content.

The key supplier-related financial achievements for the first nine months of 2025 include:

• CapEx reduction of $65 million achieved through supplier talks.
• Total OpEx savings at TelevisaUnivision over $300 million.
• Consolidated operating segment income margin reached 38.2%.
• Churn rate fell below the historical average of 2%.
• Generated around MXN 4.2 billion in free cash flow.

To be fair, the success in OpEx and CapEx shows they are actively managing this force, but the valuation of their content portfolio remains the critical variable that dictates the power dynamic with external content owners.

Finance: Review the Q4 2025 procurement contracts against the Q2 2025 negotiation benchmarks by next Tuesday.

Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. (TV) - Porter's Five Forces: Bargaining power of customers

The bargaining power of customers for Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. remains a significant factor shaping its operational strategy. Power is high due to low switching costs for video and mobile services in the competitive Mexican market. When it's easy and cheap to move, customers hold the leverage.

The satellite pay-television arm, Sky, clearly illustrates this pressure. During the third quarter of 2025, Grupo Televisa reported that the Sky segment lost 329,000 revenue-generating units (RGUs), with the majority of these losses coming from prepaid subscribers who stopped recharging their services. This high level of churn directly translates to customer power, as they are not locked in. To be fair, this segment's revenue decline was steep, falling by 18.2% year-on-year in Q3 2025, which management described as a shrinking legacy asset.

Grupo Televisa is actively countering this by focusing on retaining value customers within its Cable segment, which indicates the mass market remains quite price-sensitive. The company's strategy is clearly aimed at securing more stable, higher-value relationships rather than chasing volume at any cost. Still, the results show some success in this targeted approach.

Here's a quick look at the segment performance as of the end of Q3 2025:

The success in the Cable segment is evident in the churn metrics. The Cable broadband churn rate has remained below the historical average of 2% for two consecutive quarters. This shows some retention success, but the need to keep the rate low underscores the constant threat of customers leaving for better deals or bundled packages.

The competitive landscape means customers have viable alternatives for bundling services. You see competitors like América Móvil offering integrated packages across mobile, fixed broadband, and video services. This ease of substitution forces Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. to constantly manage its pricing and value proposition.

Key indicators of customer power include:

• Sky prepaid base showing high sensitivity to service cost.
• Need for continuous broadband churn reduction efforts.
• Video segment still losing subscribers, albeit at a slower pace.
• Mobile segment adding 94,000 net additions in Q3 2025, suggesting competitive offers are working there.

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. (TV) - Porter's Five Forces: Competitive rivalry

You're looking at a market where the fight for every subscriber is fierce, especially since the Mexican cable market is already highly penetrated. Honestly, this level of saturation means growth comes mostly from stealing share, which ramps up the rivalry significantly.

The pressure is clear in the numbers. For the third quarter of 2025, Grupo Televisa's overall segment revenue fell by 4.4% when compared to the same period in 2024, reflecting this intense market pressure across its core services. Still, the company managed to keep its operating segment income margin up at 38.5%, a 140 basis point increase year-on-year, which shows cost efficiencies are helping offset some of the top-line weakness.

The direct competition with América Móvil (Telmex/Telcel) is a major factor in this rivalry. América Móvil remains the dominant force, but Grupo Televisa holds a strong position in pay-TV and is a key player in broadband. Here's a quick look at how the two stack up in key areas as of late 2025:

The satellite business, Sky, is feeling the heat the most. Its revenue declined steeply by 18.2% year-on-year in Q3 2025. This was driven by a significant drop in its subscriber base, with the company reporting 329.4 thousand Revenue Generating Unit (RGU) net disconnections in the quarter. That RGU base saw a year-on-year decrease of 23.9%. Management has described Sky as a shrinking but cash-generating legacy asset, which tells you they see the competitive erosion continuing there.

The rivalry isn't just about laying fiber or satellite dishes; it extends deep into content production and distribution, too. Grupo Televisa is the largest shareholder in TelevisaUnivision, which produces and distributes Spanish-speaking content globally. This content ownership is a critical lever in bundling offers and competing against pure-play infrastructure providers. The company is also leaning into its mobile offering, adding 94,000 mobile lines in Q3 2025 through its Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) service, trying to increase the share of wallet from existing customers.

The competitive dynamics are shaped by a few key pressures:

• Mexican homes with at least one TV set: 95.3%.
• Total Mexican fixed broadband accesses (Approx. Sept 2025): 27.9 million.
• Sky RGU base decline (YoY Q3 2025): 23.9%.
• Total 2025 Capex Guidance: US$600 million.
• Broadband net adds in Q3 2025: 22,000.

To be fair, the competition is forcing strategic shifts. The focus for the cable business is now on higher-end clients rather than pure volume, as the market is nearly saturated. Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. (TV) - Porter\'s Five Forces: Threat of substitutes

You're looking at the competitive forces shaping Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. (TV) right now, and the threat of substitutes is definitely a major headwind, especially for its traditional video business. This force is about what customers use instead of your core offering, and in media and connectivity, the alternatives are multiplying fast.

The pressure from Over-The-Top (OTT) streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, and others is intense across Latin America. These platforms offer on-demand content, often with superior user interfaces and massive content libraries, directly competing for the entertainment and sports viewing hours that used to belong to Grupo Televisa's linear and pay-TV products. This substitution is so direct that it's showing up clearly in the numbers.

We saw the substitution effect clearly in the third quarter of 2025 results. The Cable segment reported a net loss of 42,691 video subscribers in Q3 2025, which is a direct measure of customers choosing alternatives. That loss followed a drop of 53,000 in Q2 2025 and 73,000 in Q1 2025, showing a persistent churn trend, although the Q3 loss was slightly better than the prior quarters. To put this in perspective, the Sky pay-TV segment revenue declined by 18.2% year-over-year in Q3 2025, largely driven by a decrease in its RGUs (Revenue Generating Units) base, which is the classic sign of substitution pressure hitting a legacy video product.

The situation is complicated because Grupo TelevisaUnivision's own platform, ViX, acts as a self-cannibalizing substitute. While ViX is a strategic move to capture the digital audience, its success directly pulls eyeballs and potential subscription revenue away from Grupo Televisa's traditional cable and satellite video offerings. As of mid-2025, ViX had already surpassed 10 million global subscribers. Furthermore, analyst forecasts suggested ViX was set to reach 10.5 million paid customers in the Americas by the end of 2025, making it the fastest-growing major subscription streaming service in the region by percentage growth at an estimated 18% for the year. This internal competition means the substitution threat is managed, but the revenue mix is shifting away from higher-margin legacy services.

Here's a quick look at how the core video business is stacking up against the digital shift:

We also can't ignore the substitution risk in the broadband market, which impacts the bundling strategy. In Mexico at the start of 2025, the median fixed internet download speed was 83.00 Mbps, but for those relying solely on mobile data, the median speed was only 33.10 Mbps. Still, mobile-only internet access serves as a viable substitute for fixed broadband in lower-income areas where laying fiber or coax cable is cost-prohibitive or impractical. With 127 million total mobile connections in Mexico at the start of 2025 (representing 96.5% of the population), the sheer reach of mobile data means a significant portion of the population can access substitutes for video and basic internet without a fixed line.

Finally, the zero-cost substitute remains powerful: free-to-air television. Despite the rise of subscription models, broadcast television still captures a massive, price-insensitive audience for news, major live events, and general entertainment. This is especially true for the segments of the population that are highly cost-sensitive or have limited digital access. Grupo TelevisaUnivision's linear assets still command significant viewership, but the zero-cost nature of this substitute means it generates no direct subscription revenue, putting pressure on advertising yields.

The key takeaways on substitution are:

• OTT streaming is the primary driver of legacy video subscriber loss.
• ViX's growth is cannibalizing Grupo Televisa's own traditional video base.
• Mobile internet provides a baseline, low-cost substitute for fixed services.
• Free-to-air TV remains a zero-cost alternative for mass reach.

Finance: draft the sensitivity analysis on the impact of a further 5% decline in Sky revenue for the 2026 budget by Friday.

Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. (TV) - Porter's Five Forces: Threat of new entrants

The threat of new entrants into Grupo Televisa's core telecommunications business remains low, primarily because you're facing barriers built on massive, sustained capital expenditure (CapEx) requirements for network build-out. Building a competitive footprint demands billions in investment, which immediately filters out most potential players. Grupo Televisa upheld its full-year CapEx guidance of US$600 million for 2025. For the first nine months of 2025, the company's total investment hit 7.5 billion pesos, representing 16.8% of sales. This spending level implies a CapEx to sales ratio of less than 20% for the full year 2025.

Consider the scale of existing infrastructure. Izzi's cable network already passes approximately 20 million Mexican homes as of the third quarter of 2025. To compete directly, a new entrant would need to replicate this footprint, which is a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar undertaking. Here's a quick look at how incumbent investment stacks up against the required scale:

Also, government concessions and regulatory hurdles create significant entry barriers, especially following the late 2024 constitutional reforms. The regulatory landscape is now bifurcated and centralized under executive control, which introduces complexity. The former independent regulator, the IFT, was dissolved. New entrants must navigate approvals from two bodies: the Comisión Reguladora de Telecomunicaciones (CRT) for technical aspects and the National Antimonopoly Commission (CNA) for competition clearance.

The new framework reinforces state involvement and specific licensing requirements. A single concession is now required for all public telecommunications and broadcasting services, and this concession is granted only to Mexican individuals or entities. Furthermore, state-owned enterprises like CFE Telecommunications and Internet for All (CFE TEIT) are positioned as potential service providers, which can distort the competitive field.

New entrants would need to overcome Grupo Televisa's established brand equity and distribution network. Still, the company is actively solidifying this advantage through internal consolidation. The integration of Izzi and Sky is creating a more defensible combined entity. This merger generated a 38.1% increase in profits and a seven percent decrease in operating expenses as of 2Q25.

The operational efficiencies achieved are substantial, acting as a moat against new competition:

• Workforce optimization included a 20% staff reduction in December 2024.
• Savings from these moves totaled nearly US$400 million by the end of 2024.
• The combined entity aims to align strategy under a single command.
• Sky, despite customer losses of 346,600 in 2Q25, still represents 4.1 million revenue-generating units as of September 2025.

Honestly, replicating the scale and cost structure of this combined operation is a monumental task for any newcomer.