SVOD decline accelerating in cost-of-living crisis UK, says Kantar

Close to half a million UK consumers dropped out of the SVOD universe in the second quarter of this year, according to numbers compiled by research outfit Kantar.

According to Kantar’s Entertainment on Demand streaming market data, the number of VOD-enabled households that subscribed to at least one video streaming service fell to 16.42 million, down 488,000, quarter on quarter, with the remainder representing 56% of households.

The drop follows a fall of 215,000 recorded by Kantar in the first quarter of this year.

Subscribers cancelled a total of 1.66 million SVOD subscriptions in the quarter, up 10% on the previous quarter and up 121 million year-on-year, according to the research outfit.

However, the proportion of consumers planning to cancel SVOD services because the wanted to save money dipped slightly from an all-time high of 38% in Q1 to 36% in Q2, according to the survey data.

Kantar found that Disney+ and Apple TV+ performed well in the quarter, with Disney’s service taking a 21.5% share of new subscribers and Apple TV+ taking a 9.9% share. Amazon Prime Video was the leader in share of new subscriptions, with 25.9%, while Netflix’s share dropped by 4.5%.

According to Kantar, the biggest drop in penetration of SVOD services was among under 24s.

Saving money was named as the principal reason for cancellation, cited by 36% of those cancelling services.