By the end of this week ,subscription video on demand (SVOD) services, led by US interloper Netflix, are expected to have signed up 2.7 million subscribers, Australian-based technology analyst outfit Telsyte has predicted.
That’s a growth rate of 46 percent over the same period last year, Telsyte says. But the overall takeover of both pay-TV and SVOD services is gaining ground at a much slower rate – just 4pc over the 12 months, according to Telsyte.
That might suggest viewers are bailing out of pay-TV (in which the major operator is Foxtel, jointly owned by Telstra and Rupert Murdoch’s News group) and joining the likes of Netflix, Stan and Presto – though CDN was unable to get confirmation of this from Telsyte last night.
Telsyte does estimate that SVOD subscriptions will have grown by almost 900,000 during the 12 months to the end of June. And it says SVOD services are also generating around 40 percent more revenue than a year ago.
According to Telsyte, local players Stan and Presto – though smaller – have been growing faster than Netflix in the past 12 months as appetite for more content drives people to adopt a second or third provider. One in five Netflix customers now has more than one SVOD service, according to Telsyte. – DF