According to a recent study, the number of online video subscribers is increasing impressively on a global scale. According to the latest Global: Pay TV & Online Video study from Omdia, the overall number climbed from 1.14 billion at the end of 2020 to 1.34 billion at the end of 2021, an increase of 17.7 per cent annually.
Omdia projects a further 10.5 per cent rise in 2022, bringing the total to 1.48 billion by the end of the year. This indicates that the market will continue to grow for several years, and Omdia’s forecasts show the global total will exceed 2 billion in 2027. Major players are still only partially through their respective global expansion efforts, which is crucial given that new services are constantly entering the market.
Online video services continue to achieve outstanding growth levels, and there is much more to come, according to Adam Thomas, Senior Principal Analyst in Omdia’s TV & Online Video team. Disney+ has had a tremendously successful debut, but over the next few years, it can expand into several other markets. The same holds for Paramount+, Peacock, and several other services. The potential for an agreement between HBO Max and Discovery+ also seems promising. Our estimates reflect the many reasons to be optimistic about the future of internet video.
The number of pay-TV subscribers worldwide increased from 1.02 billion to 1.03 billion in 2021, a 0.6 per cent increase. Omdia predicts that the pay-TV market would experience a steady decline over the next few years, with subscription numbers falling from 1.03 billion to one billion in 2027, a 1.9 per cent decrease, as online video competition increases. While the number of online video subscribers is increasing almost everywhere, the pay-TV landscape varies greatly from country to country. Out of the 101 pay-TV markets Omdia closely monitors, the results reveal substantial swings, with 55 nations still reporting subscription growth, 41 indicating decline, and five remaining largely stable. Omdia anticipates that during the following five years, certain nations, most notably the US, would continue to experience declining fortunes while others, like Indonesia, will continue to register substantial increases.
The only cautionary note I would add is that because pay-TV as a whole is plateauing, the TV and video industry is becoming more and more dependent on growth from Internet content. However, a price-conscious public has become accustomed to expecting a lot of value for their money because that industry was founded on high content investment paired with low subscription pricing. It can be challenging to strike a balance between content costs and pricing, and Netflix has already stated that it anticipates losing 2 million subscribers this quarter. It is abundantly evident that online video’s continued rise is in no way guaranteed.
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