Advanced Television

Forecast: Coronavirus to boost global SVoD subs by 5%

March 26, 2020

Strategy Analytics has published its latest forecast for SVoD services. The forecast took account of the expected impact of the Coronavirus pandemic, and although the longer term impact clearly remains uncertain, early evidence suggests that a boost to SVoD usage globally can be expected.

As a result the forecast for global subscriptions was increased by 5 per cent in comparison to the pre-pandemic model. The projection is now 949 million paid subscriptions globally by the end of 2020, suggesting an increase of 47 million compared to earlier forecasts.

Longer term, the forecast predicts that paid SVoD subscriptions will grow by 621 million between 2019 and 2025, reaching 1.43 billion. Currently, China and the US combined account for nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) of paid SVoD subscriptions globally, however, as these markets mature and approach market saturation and paid subscriptions, particularly in Southeast Asia grow, their share of global SVoD subscriptions will fall to 55 per cent in 2025.

“One significant factor affecting future SVoD growth is the impact of the Coronavirus in both the short and long term,” said Michael Goodman, Director, TV & Media Strategies. “In the near term the Coronavirus will actually boost SVoD subscriptions, as well as viewing of these services, as an ever growing number of consumers adopt social distancing or are forced into quarantine. In the mid-to-long term much depends on the length of the pandemic and resulting economic damage. As businesses shut down and individuals are laid off consumers are going to have to make hard decisions about how they spend their money and as wonderful as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and other SVoD services may be, they are not essential services.”

“Despite declining global share, China will remain the largest SVoD market with 438 million paid subscriptions in 2025, up from 131 million from 2019. The US will follow with 342 million subscriptions in 2025, up from 125 million from 2019. With nearly three-quarters of US TV households subscribing to one or more SVoD service the US SVoD market is becoming saturated,” Goodman added, “ but with US SVoD households continuing to add additional services such as CBS All Access, Disney+, and the soon-to-launch HBO MAX the total number of SVoD subscriptions in the US will continue to grow.”

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