Forecast: SVoD growth will fall back to 2015 level
January 18, 2021
SVoDs will have much slower growth in 2021 after the record-breaking 2020, according to Omdia. While global OTT TV subscriptions rose from 849 million in 2019 to 1.06 billion last year – overtaking global pay-TV numbers – growth is likely to be relatively slower this year, with the overall number rising to 1.14 billion. Traditional pay-TV is set to remain more or less flat meanwhile.
For Netflix and Amazon, 2021 will be their smallest year of growth in absolute terms since 2015, while Apple TV+ is likely to lose close to eight million subscribers in the summer as bundling deals expire and the service’s relative lack of original titles makes its impact felt. Catalogue size, says Omdia, is the key determinant of whether subscribers stay with a streaming service or churn.
While SVoD players were big winners from the Covid-19 pandemic, the cinema business was a big loser. According to Omdia, the industry lost $23 billion in revenue as a result of the pandemic, with innovations such as PVoD windows and other transactional revenues failed to make up the difference from lost ticket sales. It predicts that cinema revenue will recover only partially this year, rising to between $425-27 billion, still over a third down on pre-pandemic levels.