SVOD Subs in North America to Exceed TV Homes

LONDON: According to Digital TV Research, North America will have 138 million SVOD subscribers by 2021, surpassing the 117 million TV households estimated for the same period.

The North America SVOD Forecasts report cites 112 million SVOD subs for end-2016 in North America, up by 19 million on the prior year. The average SVOD subscriber in the U.S. will pay for about 1.5 services. From the 127 million U.S. total in 2021, the report forecasts that 43 million will be secondary SVOD subscriptions—meaning there will be 84 million primary SVOD users in the U.S. by 2021 or 71 percent of TV households.

Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “It is important to stress that these SVOD figures are gross—some homes take more than one SVOD platform, especially in the U.S.”

He continued: “Another important point is that our forecasts include Amazon Video—some other forecasts do not. Amazon Prime subscribers do not directly pay for Amazon Video. However, to give as full a picture of the sector as possible, we calculate that 60 percent of Amazon Prime subscribers watch Amazon Video. For these homes, we have devoted half the Amazon Prime fee to Amazon Video.”

The number of U.S. Amazon Video subs will grow from 30 million in 2015 to 49 million by 2021, according to the report. Amazon Video is expected to start in Canada in 2017. Amazon Video will have 51 million subscribers in North America by 2021, generating revenues of $2.5 billion.

Netflix, meanwhile, is forecast to have 59 million paying SVOD subscribers in North America by 2021, up from 53 million at end-2016. The U.S. will provide 52 million of the 2021 total. Netflix’s North American SVOD revenues are forecast to increase from $5.36 billion in 2016 to $6.85 billion in 2021.