UK SVOD set to boom

Subscription video-on-demand services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video and Now TV will see their UK user numbers almost double by 2019, according to Futuresource Consulting.

The research firm claimed that the UK SVOD space – driven by these three key players – is going “from strength to strength” and predicted that the seven million individual SVOD subscribers at the end of 2014 will rise to 13.6 million by 2019.

Futuresource said that the rollout of fibre broadband and the availability of services on a fast growing connected device base has led to a “vastly improved viewing experience for many in the online video sector”, encouraging consumers to pay for premium content.

The total value of the UK SVOD market will cross the £1 billion (US$1.6 billion) mark by 2019, according to the report. It also predicted that Netflix’s global subscriber base will rise from 60 million to “at least eighty million” by the end of 2016.

Elsewhere, Futuresource said that 2014 was a “breakthrough year” for electronic sell-through and claimed that the total digital video market in the UK will continue its growth momentum.

“The digital video market came of age in 2014, attracting new customers to both transactional and digital video. The total digital market grew by an impressive fifty-five per cent to reach over £600 million, almost four times the level of 2011,” said David Sidebottom, senior marketing analyst at Futuresource Consulting.

“Although SVOD more than doubled in 2014 and now accounts for over half of total digital video at £350 million, nearly thirty per cent growth in transactional digital video in 2014 was perhaps more impressive given the disappointing performance in 2013 and 2012.”

The findings come in the wake of recent research that suggested the UK will the largest European market for Netflix, which will see its subs base grow more than two-fold in the territory in the next few years.