Video streaming services have witnesses an explosion of not just revenue in the last five years but of subscribers and without much research, it’s clear that Netflix is the biggest of them in the United States and the world. Netflix has over 50 million subscribers in the United States alone and on a global scale, that number is nearly 110 million with many of these subscribers on the $9.99 plan (even though it added a dollar to that price for US subscribers in October).
But it’s not just about Netflix, Parks Associates, which is a market research firm said earlier today that Amazon and Hulu are the second and third respectively. Brett Sappington who is a senior director of research at Parks said “While the top three are no surprise, the big story over the past year has been the rapid subscriber growth for OTT video services from HBO, Showtime, and Starz”. Sappington said further explained that “The combination of recognized brands and popular original content is driving demand for their offerings.”
But while you may have expected even before the research release to see some of the names at the number they are, it’s surprising or maybe not that Major League Baseball’s MLB.TV ranked number four by subscribers in the United States.
HBO Now and Starz (which streams shows like Power, The Outlander and American Gods) came fifth and sixth respectively. Google’s YouTube Red came in at seventh place but that might be expected if you consider that it’s just two years old.
The growth in the United States has been primarily fuelled by the broadband penetration and as the research puts it, one-third of all households subscribe to at least two of the streaming services.
Nigeria’s penetration rate for example is nearing 30 percent which is why streaming services are also on the rise on the continent.
As these services the world over grow, they have also seen the need to invest billions of dollars to make original content. From Netflix to Apple, more unique content is coming online in 2018 which means the average household might even subscribe to more two streaming services in future.
Paul Balo is the founder of TechBooky and a highly skilled wireless communications professional with a strong background in cloud computing, offering extensive experience in designing, implementing, and managing wireless communication systems.
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