The research company Omdia forecasts that, between 2021 and 2027, the number of U.S. Pay TV subscribers will shrink by 16.9%. The company also predicted declines in Pay TV subscriber numbers in India (by 3.4%), Brazil (by 2.3%), Canada (2.2%), and Germany (2%).
Indonesia tops the list of markets that will experience the most Pay TV subscriber growth in the same period, according to Omdia, with a 6.3% increase in Pay TV subscribers forecast for the country. The number of Pay TV subscribers will also rise in South Korea (2.4%), France (2.3%), Bulgaria (0.6%), and South Africa (0.5%).
Omdia reveals that global Pay TV subscriber numbers increased by 0.6% in 2021, from 1.02B to 1.03B. Despite this, the company expects that competition from streaming services will result in a 1.9% drop in global Pay TV subscriber levels, to reach 1B in 2027. Of the 101 Pay TV markets that Omdia tracks most closely, 55 countries are still experiencing Pay TV subscriber growth, while 41 are reporting declines and a further five remain “essentially static.”
In contrast, Omdia reports that streaming service subscription numbers “continue to grow at impressive levels across the world.” The company’s research shows that global total streaming service subscribers grew from 1.14B at end-2020 to 1.34B at end-2021 – an increase of 17.7% year-on-year. By the end of the year, Omdia forecasts a further 10.5% growth in streaming service subscribers to reach 1.48B, and that the global total will surpass 2B by 2027.
Omdia commented: “With three billion global subscriptions [for Pay TV and streaming services] forecast for 2027, the sector is clearly in good health. But Omdia will continue to monitor growth patterns very carefully to ensure that remains the case. With Pay TV as a whole plateauing, the TV and video business is becoming increasingly reliant on growth from online video.
“However, that business has been built on high content investment aligned with low subscription prices, meaning a price-sensitive public has come to expect a lot of value from their subscriptions. The content costs-versus-pricing balancing act is a tricky one to navigate, and with Netflix expecting to lose two million customers in 2Q22, growth for online video can by no means be guaranteed.”
