More than 20m homes in the UK now report having access to a subscription VOD (SVOD) service, according to Barb survey data, with Netflix accounting for the vast majority.
Barb’s latest Establishment Survey, covering Q2, showed that nearly seven in 10 homes (68.7%) reported having access to an SVOD service — a slight increase from 19.5m homes in the first three months of this year.
Netflix alone accounts for 17.1m, up from 16.7m in Q1. This means Netflix is now reportedly being watched in nearly six in 10 UK homes (59%) or that Netflix accounts for 87% of all SVOD services used by households in the UK.
For the first time in the survey, Barb has shared a figure for those with access to the cheaper, ad-supported tier for Disney+. The Disney+ ad tier, in its eighth month after launching in the UK by the end of June, averaged in 820,000 homes across the quarter. The number of UK homes on the cheaper Netflix ad tier reached 2.78m (9.5%), up from 2.12m (7.4%) in Q1.
The number of homes with two or more SVOD services also increased to 14m, or 48% of all households, for the first time.
At a glance: Q2 reported SVOD usage
Netflix: 17.1m UK homes (58.6%), up from 16.7m (58%) in Q1
Amazon Prime Video: 13.7m (46.7%), up from 13m (45.3%) in Q1
Disney+: 7.6m (26.1%), flat compared with Q1
Discovery+: 3.2m (11.1%), up from 3.1m (10.9%) in Q1
Paramount+: 2.8m (9.7%), up from 2.6m (9.1%) in Q1
Apple TV+: 2.4m (8.3%), flat compared with Q1
Now: 1.98m (6.8%), up from 1.82m (6.3%) in Q1
Can VOD avoid ‘plateaus’ of last three years?
Doug Whelpdale, head of Insight at Barb, said: “The challenge will be to maintain this momentum [in SVOD growth]. Q3 will be a key test to see if the pure-play VOD services can avoid the plateaus of the last three years, but 2024 appears to be going well for these services so far.”
Only streaming services with a household penetration of more than 5% are reported. The door-to-door survey, which asks residents which services they have access to at home, is subject to “uncertainty”, Barb said, where the respondent is not the subscriber in the household or the service is provided in a package with other services.
