Australians appear to be embracing subscription video-on-demand services (SVOD) delivered via the Internet, a new report by Sydney-based market research outfit Telsyte suggests.
The Telsyte study concludes that Australian subscriptions to these services were up by around 30 percent in the 12 months ended June 30, 2017.
According to Telsyte’s Australian SVOD Market Study 2017, some 49 percent of Australian households currently subscribe to either pay-TV or SVOD services, with 11 per cent subscribing to both – up from 38 per cent in 2015.
And here’s the bit that will have traditional pay-TV operators really concerned: Telsyte reckons paid SVOD subscriptions are on track to overtake traditional pay-TV subscribers by June 2018, as consumers increasingly sign up for content-on-demand services, frequently across multiple devices.
Netflix is the market leader, but Telsyte reckons consumers will consider multiple providers, leaving room for services from Stan, Amazon, YouTube Red, Foxtel, Optus Sport “and a long list of others”.
Netflix had more than two million Australian subscriptions at the end of June 2017, with Stan in second spot with 867,000 subscribers, and others making up 769,000, Telsyte estimates.
Another possibly important statistic, at least as Telsyte does the calculations: SVOD services are putting pressure on free-to-air TV rivals and traditional pay TV, with around a third of pay-TV subscribers also having at least one SVOD subscription, and an estimated 46 per cent of SVOD subscribers claiming to “rarely” watch free-to-air TV.
