Omdia: Global Pay-TV & Online Video Subs to Pass 3 Billion in 2027

New research from Omdia forecasts online video subscriptions worldwide to reach 2 billion in 2027, and with pay-TV subs still exceeding 1 billion, the combined global total will surpass 3 billion.

Omdia’s new Global: Pay TV & Online Video report finds that the global total increased from 1.14 billion at the end of 2020 to 1.34 billion at the end of 2021, up 17.7 percent year-on-year. Omdia is forecasting a further 10.5 percent growth in 2022 to take the figure to 1.48 billion by the end of the year.

Adam Thomas, senior principal analyst in Omdia’s TV & Online Video team, commented: “Online video services are continuing to experience impressive growth levels, and there is a lot more to come. Disney+ has enjoyed an incredibly successful launch, but there are several more attractive territories for it to enter over the next couple of years. And the same goes for Paramount+, Peacock and several others. The prospects for the alliance of HBO Max with discovery+ also looks exciting. There are numerous reasons to be positive for online video’s prospects over the next few years, which are reflected in our forecasts.”

Global pay-TV subscription numbers grew by 0.6 percent in 2021, from 1.02 billion to 1.03 billion. Omdia expects the pay-TV market to exhibit slow decline looking ahead and forecasts subscription numbers to drop from the 1.03 billion figure to 1 billion in 2027, down by 1.9 percent.

Of the 101 pay-TV markets that Omdia tracks in most detail, 55 countries are still reporting subscription growth, 41 are reporting decline and five are essentially static. Over the next five years, Omdia expects those contrasts to continue, with countries like Indonesia continuing to post solid increases, while others, most notably the U.S., see ongoing decline.

Thomas said, “The one small note of caution I would add is that with pay TV as a whole plateauing, the TV and video business is becoming increasingly reliant on growth from online video. But with that business having been built on high content investment aligned with low subscription prices, a price-sensitive public has come to expect a lot of bang for their buck. The content costs versus pricing balancing act is a tricky one to navigate, and we’ve already heard from Netflix that it expects to lose 2 million customers in this quarter. It is quite clear that constant growth for online video is by no means guaranteed.”