Netflix: 15 major new pay-TV partners in 2019
December 2, 2019
More than 300 million pay-TV households worldwide now subscribe to operators who offer access to Netflix through their set-top boxes (STBs), thanks to an increasing number of partnership deals with the streaming giant.
To date, Netflix has struck over 100 major partnership deals. These operator deals give Netflix theoretical access to nearly half of all global pay-TV subscribers outside China.
By the end of 2018, three quarters of pay-TV subscribers in Western Europe had contracts with Netflix partner operators. Netflix also has a substantial reach through pay-TV households in North America, its home region, with as many as 86 per cent of pay-TV subscribers able to find Netflix on their operator’s STBs at the end of last year.
“The increase in the number of pay-TV partnerships with Netflix marks a distinct shift in the industry, as more and more of the streaming giant’s traditional ‘enemies’ cosy up through onboarding deals,” advises Elinor Clark, Analyst at Ampere Analysis.
“Interestingly, Netflix has now been onboarded onto all the major pay-TV operators in France, a country previously hostile to the US streamer’s arrival.”
“Netflix has yet to attract many of the large pay-TV operators in Central and South America, Asia Pacific (APAC) and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), though it is steadily working on increasing its reach. These markets (excluding China) play host to almost 400 million pay-TV subscriptions, and Netflix currently has around 40 million subscribers in these territories, making these key target areas for the streamer to pursue.”
“Of course, Netflix is not the only beneficiary. These partnerships can also be lucrative for pay-TV operators, providing them with an additional revenue stream when there may be downward pressure on their average revenue per user (ARPU) and, in some markets, cord-cutting,” she suggests.