Barb: UK SVOD subs rises in Q1 to 19.5m

Source: Netflix

UK SVOD subs have climbed up to 19.5m in the first quarter, up from 18.8m in the previous quarter, with all major streamers seeing a jump in subscribers.

According to Barb’s Establishment Survey, 67.9% of UK homes have a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service.

Netflix’s advertising tier is accessed by 2.12m UK homes in Q1, which represents 58% of UK households and an increase from 1.45m in the fourth quarter.

Amazon Prime Video reached 13m UK in Q1, up from 12.4m in Q4.

Disney+ was taken by 7.5m UK homes in Q1, an increase from 7.3m in Q4.

While, 2.38m UK homes had access to Apple TV+ in Q1, up from 1.98m in Q4. Barb said this was a new high watermark for the service since it began reporting in Q3 2020.

UK households with Paramount+ UK rose from 1.99m in Q4 to 2.6m in Q1.

Discovery+. joins the tracker for the first time, with 3.1m UK homes subscribed to the service in Q1.

Sky’s streamer NOW streaming numbers in Q1 were flat compared to Q4, only counting 1.82m UK homes.

Doug Whelpdale, head of insight at Barb said: “The streaming services made a strong start to 2024, with all services except Netflix and NOW recording year-on-year improvements in the proportion of UK homes with access. Overall, 19.5m UK homes had access to a streaming service in Q1 2024, a quarter-on-quarter increase but still slightly lower year-on-year (-0.5% points). The proportion of homes with two or more services also grew compared to Q4 2023, moving from 44.7% (12.8m) to 47.3% (13.6m) to be flat year-on-year in penetration terms.

He added, “Discovery+ joins the tracker for the first time this quarter which is exciting to see. A change in the Establishment Survey questionnaire is responsible for catapulting Discovery+ above the 5% threshold for inclusion on the tracker. This was done to better capture passive streaming service subscriptions. This would include subscriptions via Sky packages and other bundles that existing questions prior to Q1 2024 did not fully capture. This change is in part also responsible for the strong quarter-on-quarter growth we see from Paramount+.”