Europe set for SVOD customer and revenue boom

One in five European homes will take a subscription video-on-demand service by 2020, with Western Europe leading the way in terms of SVOD homes, according to new research.

Digital TV Research says that by end-2014, there will be 18 million households in Europe taking an SVOD service, 6.4% of all TV homes in the region. That total will rocket to 59.4 million, or 20.7% of all TV homes, by 2020, according to Digital TV Research’s analysts.

They added that 6.8% of Eastern European TV households (11 countries) will subscribe to an SVOD package by 2020, compared with 29.7% in Western Europe (15 countries).

Revenues generated by SVOD services will rocket accordingly, with the 2014 total coming in at US$1.6 billion, rising to US$5.5 billion by 2020. In financial terms, the UK will be the largest SVOD revenue earner by this point, with Germany ranked second.

Across all online video services delivered over fixed broadband – factoring in free and ad-supported as well as subscription services – the revenue total for 2014 will be US$4.8 billion. By 2020 it will rise to US$12.9 billion.

Again the UK will lead the way, but its share of online video revenues will slide from 30% in 2010 to 20% by 2020 with the likes of Italy and Russia registering strong growth.

Online TV ad revenues will rise from US$2.3 billion in 2014 to US$5.1 billion by 2020, Digital TV Research said. Pay-per-view and rental revenues will hit US$858 million by 2020 and download-to-own sales will reach US$1.4 billion.