The growth rate in the US video streaming market is slowing for the first time, suggesting that the market is approaching saturation, according to new research from Strategy Analytics. US consumers will spend USD 6.62 billion on video streaming services in 2016, up 22 percent or USD 1.19 billion from 2015. However, this growth will be less than the USD 1.21 billion spend increase registered in 2015.
Strategy Analytics' Digital Media Director, Michael Goodman, said that although this change is relatively small, it is extremely significant at it suggests that the US streaming subscription market is the downside of the adoption curve, with the incremental annual increase in dollar spend set to decline from now. The research shows that almost 60 percent of US broadband homes subscribe to a video streaming service, with Netflix accounting for 53 percent of subscriptions, followed by Amazon Prime Video (25%) and Hulu (13%). However, nearly 40 percent of households subscribing to a video streaming service, subscribe to at least two.
The 22 percent increase in streaming subscription revenue means the format will account for 35 percent of US consumer spend on home video in 2016. Downloading to buy will rise 17 percent to USD 2.2 billion and downloading to rent will fall 5 percent to USD 1.84 billion – for a combined 22 percent share of the total USD 19.09 billion home video market in 2016.
