The number of British households subscribing to one video streaming service or more rose by 55,000 during the final quarter of 2022 according to research by Kantar.
In its latest Entertainment on Demand (EoD) data, the company found that between September and December 2022, the number of VoD-enabled households that subscribed to at least one video streaming service in Great Britain rose to 16.24 million, representing 56% of households.
However, the proportion of consumers planning to cancel one or more SVoD services in the next quarter rose to 12 per cent vs 10 per cent in Q3 2022.
Speaking about the company’s findings, Dominic Sunnebo, Global Insight Director, Kantar, Worldpanel Division, said, “Prime Video had a strong final quarter of the year, with an increasing number of households taking out Prime memberships and using the Prime delivery service in the run-up to the Christmas holidays. With an influx of subscriptions, Prime Video managed to hold its conversion rate steady, with 61 per cent of Prime members using the service.”
Across the rest of the market, Disney Plus had what Kantar described as an exceptional year in Britain, maintaining its subscriber growth through Q4, albeit at a slower rate. It overtook Netflix earlier in the year in Net Promoter Score, a measure of subscriber advocacy, however, in Q4, Netflix drew level again as Disney Plus suffered from a drop in this measure, added the company.
Kantar added that Netflix’s launch of its new AVoD option drew a “muted response” in Great Britain, with early data suggesting around 4 per cent of existing Netflix subscribers downgraded to the new, cheaper, ad-supported tier during December, whilst just under one in five new subscribers chose the ad-supported tier.
However, there was no big bump in subscriptions as a result of the launch, added the company. Netflix held 7.5 per cent share of new subscribers in Q4 2022, “indicating the £2 monthly price saving is not going to be enough to drive a significant new wave of Netflix subscribers in Britain”, it added.
