Netflix and Amazon alone accounted for nearly 80 percent of the subscription video on demand (SVOD) market in the EU in 2017, according to a new report from the European Audiovisual Observatory. The study of the AV services market also revealed that almost 1 in 3 pay-TV subscriptions were signed off either to Liberty Global (UPC, Ziggo, Virgin TV, Telenet, Unitymedia TV) or Comcast (Sky) in 2017. With a 40 percent share in 2017, pay AV services (pay-TV and SVOD) represented the main contributor and driver of the overall AV services market over the ten-year period (2008-17) studied.
However, the report found that the surge of SVOD did not cause a significant slowdown of the pay AV services market, but did capture most of the revenues growth. The increase in pay AV subscriptions was driven by SVOD but with a much lower ARPU than pay-TV, whose uptake slowed between 2013 and 2017.
The survey of data from 34 European countries also confirmed that cord-cutting is not a pan-European phenomenon and is very specific to national markets. “Each national market has been and is still shaped by very specific conditions, often exogenous to the pay audiovisual services, including purchasing power, supply of free services, penetration and performance of broadband access and, obviously regulation,” said the Observatory.
