West Europe SVOD subs could reach 65m

The number of Western European SVOD subscriptions is due to reach 65.07 million by 2022 with 10.69 million subs to be added in 2017 alone, according to new research.

The Digital TV Research report claims that the number of subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) accounts will climb from 33.96 million at the end of 2016 – with the 65.07 million number a gross figure inclusive of homes that pay for multiple SVOD services.

The number of Western European TV households that subscribe to an SVOD platform is expected to climb from 19.7% at the end of 2016 to 37.1% by 2022 – though that means that Germany, Italy, France and Spain will all still be “under the regional average by 2022”, according to the study.

“SVOD penetration is higher the further north that you travel,” said Digital TV Research principal analyst Simon Murray, who predicts that Sweden will have more SVOD subscribers than Spain in 2022, despite only having a quarter of the population.

“This has nothing to do with the weather or beer-drinking countries versus wine-drinking ones. Penetration will be particularly high in the Scandinavian countries, which have high pay TV, broadband and smartphone penetration. There are also plenty of platforms on offer.”

Netflix is expected to remain the largest pan-regional SVOD platform “by some distance” with 29.61 million paying subscribers in 2022.

This will equate to 46% of Western Europe’s total SVOD subscribers – down from a 55% share in 2016. Amazon Prime Video is tipped to be the second largest platform by 2022, with 15 million paying subscribers.

In terms of income, Western European SVOD revenues are expected to more than double from US$2.8 billion in 2016 to US$6.5 billion by 2022.

Total OTT TV revenue for 18 Western European countries is forecast to climb from US$6.90 billion in 2016 to US$14.65 billion in 2022. SVOD overtook AVOD to become the region’s largest OTT revenue source in 2016.