October 3, 2018
Global subscriptions to grow by 505 million
Global pay TV and SVOD subscriptions will reach 1,877 million by 2023. This total is up by 505 million (37%) from 1,372 million at end-2017.
The global OTT juggernaut is rolling on and over the next five years will be boosted by a spike in business across emerging markets, especially in China, according to Digital TV Research SVOD subscriptions will more than double between 2017 and 2023, but traditional pay TV will only add 94 million subscribers. The US will have 289 million subscriptions by 2023; up from 222 million at end- 2017. Due to cord-cutting, traditional pay TV subscriptions will fall by 10 million to 80 million. However, multiple subscriptions will push the SVOD total from 132 million to 208 million.
Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “China is the brightest star by adding 171 million subscriptions during this period to take its total to 610 million. Its pay TV total will “only” grow by 32 million to 375 million, but SVOD will rocket by 138 million to 235 million subscriptions. India will add a further 49 million pay TV and SVOD subscriptions to take its total to 210 million in 2023.”
Subscription revenues will only increase by 11% ($25.2 billion) to total $251 billion between 2017 and 2023. Traditional pay TV revenues will drop by $18.5 billion to $183 billion. However, SVOD revenues will climb by $43.7 billion to $69 billion. SVOD’s share of the total will increase from 11% in 2017 to 27% in 2023.
The currently burgeoning subscription video-on-demand arena shows no signs of slowing down and the analyst notes that after taking over the lion’s share of revenues in the sector in 2016, SVOD’s share of total business will increase to 53% in 2023, a six-percentage point growth in six years. This would mean that SVOD revenues would have rocketed climb by nearly $44 billion between 2017 and 2023 to reach $69 billion.
The US will remain the subscription revenue leader despite its total falling from $108 billion in 2017 to $105 billion in 2023. Pay TV subscription revenues will drop by $20 billion, with SVOD additions not quite high enough to make up the shortfall.
It is important to note that these figures are gross subscriptions. One household can have more than one subscription. For example, a household subscribing to pay satellite TV and Netflix would be counted as two subscriptions. Some homes pay for more than one SVOD platform.
