SVoD ‘stacking’ is fuelling the growth in the market as adoption amongst new customers slows, according to Ampere Analysis.
The research found that in territories such as the UK, Germany and the US multiple subscription households are on the rise, and the average SVoD home now takes two services. In the US the figure rises to 2.8.
According to the research, Amazon customers exhibit particularly strong stacking behaviour. Ampere said that in only two of the markets surveyed do Amazon subscribers average fewer than two SVoD subscriptions, “demonstrating an almost universal propensity to stack and a promising future for Amazon’s Channels service.”
Ampere reported that in the UK, Germany and Poland the SVoD market has slowed, but SVoD is still “eating into” pay-TV growth.
Partnerships in the UK between pay TV operators and SVoD services are bearing fruit as services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime can now be accessed through pay TV boxes. Here pay-TV has remained static in terms of uptake, while SVoD adoption has seen an uptick of four per cent (comparing Q1 2017 to Q1 2018).
Ampere said that in France, Italy and Spain, Netflix and Amazon are driving stacking behaviour, while in Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and the US, pay-TV is facing an ever increasing threat from cord-cutters.
Toby Holleran, senior analyst at Ampere Analysis said: “Netflix and Amazon have acted as catalysts for SVoD stacking, particularly in those European markets where they have seized the initiative through low cost subscriptions. While some European countries have been slower to adopt SVoD, the American giants are now part of the package in virtually every SVoD household. This is particularly notable in The Netherlands, where nearly three in four SVoD households take only Netflix.”
