Mumbai: According to a research report released recently at Connected TV World Summit, Omdia's senior director Maria Rua Aguete said, “The number of people paying for video services in the UK has increased 11 per cent over the last year and quarter on quarter since April 2021.”
According to Aguete, despite the UK cost of living crisis, UK people are tending to spend more and certainly no less in streaming video services. In terms of dealing with rising costs, consumers prefer to cut other expenses than their own home entertainment in order to deal with the rising cost. As the survey reveals, cuts in other spending has allowed them to subscribe to extra services.
Currently, the average UK household has 2.6 pay subscription services at home, 2 Svod services and 0.6 Pay TV. Although the churn rate has increased significantly in the last 12 months.
Despite Netflix results showing a decline in global subscriptions (200,000 in Q1 2022), Netflix remains the UK’s favourite video service. It is also still the most popular SVOD service in the domestic market, the USA.
80 per cent of households in the UK have an online subscription. YouTube and BBC iPlayer tops the chart as most favourite online video services in the UK followed by Netflix. Netflix’s Svod service is still in the race with 15.5 million subscribers.
Other most popular services in the UK are: Amazon Prime Video with 10 million subscriptions and Disney Plus with 7.5 million subscriptions.
Churn has increased significantly in the last 12 months:
45 per cent more subscription video services were cancelled in the last 12 months, while overall there were 20 percent more consumers cancelling their services compared to last year, but counteracting this trend, the number of services cancelled and re-subscribed to in the last 12 months has grown by 84 per cent meaning that although more people are churning, more people are subsequently resubscribing with 50 per cent more re-subscribers in the UK now.
According to the reports, online video subscriptions will reach 2 billion in 2027. The biggest growth in the last six months comes from: Disney, Now TV, Netflix and Amazon Prime with 21 percent, 18 percent, 8 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.
Those with four streaming video services per home are the ones churning less than those who took more than seven SVOD services are among the highest churners.
Looking forward, Omdia expects that Netflix, currently in the lead in the streaming video race (Q1 2022), will still lead in five years’ time (2026) Aguete adds: “With the lowest churn rate across all streaming video services and highest lifetime value per customer, Netflix will continue and surpass Disney by 2026.”
