Video-on-demand (VDD) has reached the mass market in Germany with 43% of all internet users paying for VOD services.
This corresponds with around 24 million people, according to the report Pay-VOD in Germany – Forecast 2016-2021. German video-on-demand market insights by consultancy and market research company Goldmedia. The figure has, thus, more than doubled since the end of 2014.
Accordingly, the turnover with paid-VOD services is strongly rising: While revenues amounted to around €423 million in 2015, they are expected to climb to €990 million in 2021, almost reaching the 1 billion euro mark.
Though the market entry of US providers Netflix and Amazon and their intense marketing activities, VOD services have strongly gained popularity since 2014. In total, there are currently 38 pay-VOD services in Germany with new players like Disney Life or YouTube Red expected to join the competition.
With a market share of 32% among the pay-VOD users, Amazon reaches the most customers, not least due to the bundling with premium delivery service Amazon Prime, according to the study. The second slot is occupied by Netflix with 17% market share, followed by Sky Deutschland (12%), maxdome (11%), Google Play (10%), iTunes (8%), Videoload (3%), Watchever (3%), Unitymedia (2%) and Select Video (2%).
The rising penetration of fee-based VOD services is mainly driven by users below 30 years of age: They prefer subscription-VOD to transactional services.
The figures in the report are based on a survey conducted by Goldmedia in April 2016 among 2,058 internet users from 14 years of age.