Analyst: Disney+ to lead W Europe OTT boom
May 31, 2019
According to the Western Europe OTT TV and Video Forecasts report from analyst firm Digital TV Research, there will be 131.20 million gross SVoD subscriptions in Western Europe by 2024, doubling from 65.19 million by end-2018. About 13 million subscribers will be added in 2019 alone, with a similar number of additions expected in 2020.
SVoD homes will pay for an average of 1.71 SVoD subscriptions by 2024 – up from 1.42 in 2018. About 43.4 per cent of TV households will have at least one SVoD subscription by 2024; up from 26.3 per cent in 2018. Penetration will reach nearly two-thirds of TV households in Norway, but will be under 30 per cent in Italy.
Gross SVoD subscriptions will represent 74.2 per cent of Western European TV households by 2024, double from 37.3 per cent at end-2018. Germany, Italy, France and Spain will all be below the regional average by 2024. Five countries will be above 100 per cent of TV households.
Netflix will remain the largest pan-regional SVoD platform by some distance, with 54.86 million paying subscribers expected by 2024 – or 42 per cent of the region’s total. This proportion is down from 54 per cent in 2018, but it does mean that the platform will add 20 million subscribers.
“Disney+ will make a strong and immediate impact, given its extensive brand recognition and impressive content line-up,” advised Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research. “We forecast 19.18 million paying subscribers by 2024 – fast approaching Amazon Prime Video.”