Streaming records for Sweden

The Swedish streaming market set new records in 2020.

According to Mediavision, the covid-19 pandemic has had “substantial effects” on the state of the streaming market in the Nordic country and that it has “accelerated the digital transformation.”

Sweden controversially did not follow the rest of the world in enforcing strict stay-at-home orders in an effort to combat Covid-19 and infamously championed a herd immunity strategy. For the purposes of the streaming market, this meant that while countries like France, Italy and the UK saw a significant increase in streaming at the beginning of the year, Sweden saw a slowdown in growth.

However, as the pandemic was felt in the country and the government largely changed its approach to its handling, subscription streaming services saw a significant growth. 

As such, 2020 holds several new records and a “continued strong transformation of the media market,” the report says.

By Q4, close to 70% of the country were consuming online video every day, a year-over-year increase of more than 10%. Similarly, over 2.6 million households paid for at least one SVOD service, with the average household spending SEK120 (€11.84) per month on services like Netflix and Viaplay.

Marie Nilsson, CEO of Mediavision, said: “2020 was, to say the least, an eventful year. We have seen strong growth for video and more people than ever are consuming video online. We can also conclude that interest in online video has grown among older people. They now adhere to streaming services like Netflix, Viaplay and Cmore to much greater extent than before. 

“On top of that, more households than ever are paying for online video services and for a larger number of services. The number of services offered to households in Sweden has never been greater, implying an even more intensified battle over the consumers in 2021.”