This is according to IHS Markit research director, Ted Hall, who told attendees of the Videoscape Europe conference in London yesterday that the next generation of “streaming heavyweights” are tracking to increase US online video subscriptions by 15% above IHS’s baseline forecast.

“Although Netflix and Amazon will remain the single most popular online channels, the new entrants’ broader offerings will boost their overall market power,” said Hall.

“At Disney, if we stack up all of its online subscription services across Hulu, Hulu Live TV, ESPN+ and Disney+, its total subscriptions will actually, in this context, rival Netflix’s subscriptions total by 2023.”

Hall described Disney+ as “arguably the most highly-anticipated of the new direct-to-consumer services” and predicted that it has a “good chance” of achieving up to 20 million subscriptions by 2023.

Due to launch in November, Disney+ will draw from a strong catalogue of Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and Fox content and at price of US$6.99 per-month will also undercut Netflix.

WarnerMedia’s forthcoming SVOD offering, on the other hand, was characterised as a service that “seems to be in the process of finding its identity,” with Hall pointing to recent executive comments suggesting it will be a single-tier offering that won’t undercut WarerMedia’s existing HBO Now service.

“We may be looking at a price-point for this service of somewhere between US$16 and US$18 per-month, so a fair bit above the services that we thought it would be competing with. There’s also talk that it’s leaning more towards having virtual pay TV ambitions,” said Hall.

He claimed that a “fatter bundle” approach makes sense for WarnerMedia’s parent company, AT&T, which has more to lose from pay TV’s decline than Disney does. However, it does also have a large mobile base that it could leverage as part of a future bundling strategy.

Apple TV+, which is due to launch this autumn but still hasn’t had pricing confirmed, is “trending towards our least aggressive forecast scenario,” said Hall. “Were it to be bundled with Apple Music, this would change the outlook significantly.”

“For Apple TV+ it will be brand equity and bankable talent that are the key weapons for attracting subscribers to its long-awaited TV content offering.”

Summing up, Hall predicted that varying levels of aggression will yield mixed results for these new streaming players in what is becoming an “exceptionally competitive online channels market”.

“High-quality content won’t be enough to guarantee success – the number of players that have it is increasing, forcing consumers to make tough choices. Bundling and hybrid models give the major players an edge, whether it’s aggregating online channels or aggregating a wider range of content and services.”

Presenting an Ultra HD TV market update at MIPTV in Cannes, IHS Markit’s Research and Analysis Director for TV, Consumer Electronics and Devices, Paul Gray, said that more than half of TVs shipped globally in Q4 2018 were 4K.

In both North America and China, 4K TV sets’ share of shipments stood at 60% in Q4 2018. In Eastern Europe it was 48%, in Japan 47%, in Latin America 39%, in the Middle East and Africa 25% and in Asia Pacific 22%.

“Europe is seeing the demise of secondary sets and concentrating on one large set. Secondary usage in Europe is shifting to tablets and smartphones,” Gray commented, explaining that in North America there are lots of 32-inch secondary TV sets, bringing down 4K’s overall share of shipments.

The research noted that average screen sizes in Western Europe are “closing rapidly on North America and China,” despite different home sizes. In Q4 2018 average screen size shipments in Western Europe were 45.8 inches, compared to 47.2 inches in North America and 48.5 inches in China.

Looking ahead, IHS tipped North America to maintain its lead as the market with the highest share of households that have at least one UHD TV. This is expected to climb from 25% in 2018 to 58% in 2022.

In Western Europe, 17% of homes were estimated to have had at least one UHD TV in 2018 with this figure expected to reach 40% in 2022. In China the proportion is expected to climb from 17% to 38% over the same period.

On the Ultra HD channel front, IHS found there to be 142 UHD channels globally as of Q1 2019 – 130 commercial networks, nine demo channels and three shopping networks. By region, Western Europe was ahead with 46 unique linear UHD channels, compared to 28 in Eastern Europe, 20 in North America and 19 in Japan.

In terms of 8K uptake, the research firm estimates that 18,600 TVs that were 8K-capable shipped in 2018 and predicted that China will dominate 8K shipments in the coming years, due in part to local panel manufacture and fierce brand competition.