The ten American SVOD services ended the first quarter with 870 million subscriptions worldwide. The second quarter should make it possible to cross the milestone of 900 million subscriptions and to predict the passage of one billion active subscriptions by the end of 2022.
The first published results confirm the differences in performance between streamers: Netflix still dominates the global market with nearly 221 million subscribers, but the Los Gatos firm lost 970,000 from April to June, including 1.3 million in United States and Canada. Peacock, the Comcast/NBCUniversal service failed to win new paying customers in the second quarter and stalled at 13 million subscribers.
While waiting to know Disney’s results with its 3 services (Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+), the other studios are posting modest growth which confirms the slowdown in recruitment for paid offers, weighed down both by stronger competition on services subscriptions, a tense economic context and new competition from offers with AVOD and FAST advertising.
As WarnerBros Discovery executives redefine streaming offerings strategy, HBOMax posted growth of 1.7 million subscribers worldwide to 92.1 million subscribers. For its part, Paramount + gains 3.7 million subscribers to 43.3 million subscribers. These two services have not yet had their fill of subscribers in Europe, which gives them a large pool over the next two years.
Since Lionsgate is for sale, its Starz service can’t really compete with major streamers, but it still boasts a subscriber gain of 1.8 million subscribers.
Finally, fubo TV (which owns Molotov), gained 240,000 subscribers in three months, including 42,000 in Europe (France and Spain), bringing its customer portfolio to 1.3 million, including 347,000 in France and Spain.
To complete the picture, the two services are missing, which almost never communicate any figures and for which American specialists publish estimates: 40 million for Apple and more than 200 million for Amazon Prime Video.
The restructuring of the audiovisual market is confirmed, placing SVOD in an unprecedented position of strength, as Netflix reminded us during the presentation of its quarterly accounts: “For example, in the United States, which is one of the most competitive markets in the world, we attracted more television viewing time than any other medium during the 2021-22 season, almost equaling the combined total of the two most-watched broadcast networks. And, as Nielsen will announce on Thursday, our U.S. TV audience share hit an all-time high of 7.7% in June (vs. 6.6% in June 2021), demonstrating our ability to grow our share of commitment by continuing to improve our service. »
