Amid the avalanche of coverage for the proposed $49 billion takeover of DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) by AT&T (NYSE: T) over the last two weeks, the satellite pay-TV service's infiltration into the Latin American market has been largely an afterthought. But Thursday's Wall Street Journal breaks down just why DirecTV's Latin American growth is so enticing to company like AT&T, which could use a little topline growth, after experiencing revenue expansion of just 1 percent in fiscal 2013.
The good news: DirecTV generated 21.5 percent of its revenue in Latin America in 2013, with revenue growth in the region coming in at 9.6 percent vs. an overall backdrop of 6.8 percent. Perhaps best of all, the Latin American market only has 36 percent pay TV penetration at this point compared to 90 percent for the U.S. You can read the full report here.