Eastern European SVOD growth dominated by Russia through until 2029

Eastern Europe will add 27 million SVOD subscriptions by 2029, according to new research from Digital TV Research. This increase will bring the total SVOD market to 68 million – up by 66% on this year’s figure. For comparison, DTVE expects Arabic SVOD to have hit 28m by 2029, with Africa also growing to 18m.

The major growth in the region will be in Russia, where DTVE expects growth of 12 million subs. After this comes Poland, with 6 million extra subs. Stripping out Russia from DTVE’s figures, there will be 32m SVOD subs in Eastern Europe by 2029.

Given the current conflict in the region, it’s no surprise to learn that the top platform by subscribers will not be US-based – it will be Kinopoisk, which is only available in Russia. Among US-backed players, DTVE expects Netflix to lead the way with 8.1m subscribers, followed by Disney (5.1m), Amazon (4.4m) and SkyShowtime (3.4m). None of these companies is currently doing business in Russia.

Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, explained the strong showing of the Russian players: “We have upgraded our forecasts for Russia due to its greater than expected resilience in the face of economic sanctions. None of the US-based platforms is likely to re-enter the Russian market before 2029.”