Global SVOD subs will hit 450 million in four years

The rise of subscription on-demand services seems unstoppable.

The number of households worldwide that pay for streaming video services like Netflix and Amazon Video is due to rise to more than 450 million by 2022, according to Strategy Analytics.

The research firm claims that the subscription video-on-demand figure currently stands at 250 million households around the world and is will reach nearly 300 million by the end of 2018.

As of December 2017 North America and the Nordics were global leaders in SVOD uptake.

The US had the highest proportion of households paying for streaming video services at 59%, followed by Canada at 51%, Norway at 46%, Sweden at 45% and Finland at 44%.

The rest of the top 10, in order, were Australia (36%), South Korea (35%), the UK (34%), Denmark (33%) and Japan (29%).“Streaming video is rapidly becoming a normal part of people’s entertainment options. Usage is already at around half of households in the most mature markets and is likely to reach those levels in many other countries in the near future,” said Michael Goodman, director, TV and media strategies at Strategy Analytics.

“Clearly market leaders like Netflix and Amazon will benefit from this trend, but there are also major opportunities for media companies which currently focus on more traditional pay TV and content development business models.”

Services analyses in the research included include Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, IVI.ru, Hulu, Viu and Iflix – but not over-the-top pay TV services like DirecTV Now and Now TV.