Swedes still spending on SVOD despite cost-of-living crunch

Swedish households are showing no signs of losing their appetite for streaming services despite the cost of living crisis, according to research outfit Mediavision.

Mediavision said its latest analysis showed that the Swedish SVOD market is growing according to trend, with Q2 proving to be a record quarter for the paid streaming market.
The household penetration for paid streaming services, such as Viaplay, Cmore or Netflix, reach 61% in the second quarter of 2022.

This is an increase of 5% compared to the same period 2021 and highlights a a consistent stable growth rate.

The average subscribing household now pays for 2.2, with 600 000 new streaming subscriptions being taken up added since the same period last year. The overall Swedish paid streaming market is now approaching six million streaming subscriptions, according to Mediavision.
Mediavision noted that during the financial crisis of 2008–2009, the number of pay TV households also increased, as did the average household expenditure, albeit not by much, indicating that demand for paid video services remains strong even in times of financial distress.
“Contrary to what many gloomy headlines have warned about in recent times, Mediavision’s analysis shows that households value their streaming subscriptions highly. They don’t seem to be prepared to cut back on that expenditure at the moment,” said Marie Nilsson, CEO at Mediavision.

“Nor do we see any signs of that when considering the households’ future purchase plans and possibly deteriorated finances. On the contrary, our figures show that households plan to acquire even more streaming services. Growth is expected to be driven primarily by existing streaming households that acquire more services. The situation could of course become worse, but as it looks right now, it is not primarily streaming services that are threatened by deteriorating household finances.”