Lockdowns to result in big lift for SVOD in 2020

Disney’s streaming service is off to a flying start and it is projected to soon pass Amazon’s Prime Video viewership, and close the gap on first-place Netflix towards the end of 2025, according to a new report from Rethink Research.

“Disney’s new streaming service could not have come at a more opportune time,” said report author Alex Davies, forecasting some 247 million subscribers by 2025.

Like Amazon, however, Disney will have to ensure that Disney+ has enough content to keep its subscribers coming back.

The global Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) market overall is projected to be positively impacted by the COVID-19 lockdowns, as consumers turn to SVoD services to fill increased viewing hours and restrictions on movie theatre attendance.

When measured against Rethink’s historic projections, it believes that the lockdowns will result in an 8.7% increase in subscriptions, and a 7.9% increase in revenue, in 2020.

Combined, this is a market that reaches 775.8 million global subscribers, worth $72.3 billion in 2025. That growth comes at the expense of traditional pay TV services, according to Rethink.

“The collective streaming providers are the nail in the coffin for traditional pay TV approaches, and it is hard to see how viewers with two or more SVoD services can ever return to the conventional pay TV model. The three streaming providers have had the biggest opportunity to rip market share from the pay TV market handed to them on a plate, and their projected success here means that they will fundamentally alter the viewing habits of hundreds of millions of households,” said Davies.

Source:csimagazine.com