Australians have embraced subscription video on demand (SVOD) with the number of customers taking up streaming entertainment services skyrocketing in the last few months.
The latest figures released by tech analysts Telsyte has shown more than two million Australians have active SVOD accounts to services like Netflix, Stan and Presto.
This is up from just 315,000 in December 2014.
The massive growth spike coincided with the arrival of Netflix in Australia and the launch of Stan – a joint venture between the Nine Network and Fairfax.
Telsyte’s research suggests a large number of customers took up free trial offers and promotions through mobile carriers, internet service providers and smart TV manufacturers.
The SVOD/OTT Video Market Study 2015 shows 1.5 million of these subscriptions have been converted to paying accounts.
In the month of June alone, these totalled more than $17 million in revenue.
The most popular SVOD services in order are Netflix, Stan, Presto and Quickflix which represent 90 per cent of the paid subscription market.
The widespread availability of free trials has resulted in Australian viewers having an average of 1.6 services.
“The SVOD market is highly competitive, seasonal, and unlikely to be a winner-takes-all marketplace,” Telsyte Managing Director, Foad Fadaghi, says.
But even with this early SVOD success, Telsyte believes catch-up TV services and Pay TV can co-exist.
At the end of June, nearly 40 per cent of households that has SVOD services also had traditional Pay TV.
“The early success of SVOD providers will encourage more film studios and content rights holders, including sporting codes, to consider direct streaming to consumers,” Fadaghi says.
