SVoD tipped to soar in North America

The number of SVoD subscriptions in North America will rise to 270 million in 2024, up 110 million from last year’s figure of 160 million, according to new research.

Digital TV Research forecasts that 77.8% of TV households in the territory – a total of 94 million – will subscribe to at least one SVoD platform by 2024.

However, many of these households are expected to subscribe to multiple SVoD services, with the average SVoD household paying for 2.89 subscriptions.

Seventy percent of TV households (84 million) were subscribed to at least one such platform by the end of 2018, with the average SVoD user paying for 1.91 subscriptions.

The figures exclude other platforms such as sports services, focusing specifically on platforms that offer movies, linear channels and TV episodes.

Digital TV Research has also predicted that Disney’s forthcoming SVoD service, Disney+, more details of which were revealed last week, will reach 25 million US subscribers in the next five years.

Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “Several high-profile SVoD launches are imminent. We expect that Disney+ will have 25 million US subscribers by 2024. Apple TV+’s growth will be more modest at eight million by 2024. This means Netflix’s share of the total will fall from 37% in 2018 to 25% in 2024, despite the company adding 10 million subscribers.”

Last year, Digital TV Research said that while global SVoD revenues were on the rise, the dominance of the US within the international SVoD market would decrease as other countries up their game in the streaming market.