Western European OTT TV and video revenues will more than double between 2015 and 2021.
However, growth rates will vary considerably between the 17 countries covered in the Western Europe OTT TV & Video Forecasts report.
Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “OTT adoption is already high in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and the UK, but it has been much more muted in other countries such as France, Spain and Portugal.”
OTT TV and video revenues in Western Europe will reach $14.64 billion in 2021; up from $6.40 billion in 2015. From the $8.25 billion in revenues to be added between 2015 and 2021, the UK will contribute $2.30 billion, Germany $1.34 billion, France $1.13 billion and Italy $0.99 billion. The UK will remain the market leader by some distance.
SVOD [subscription video on-demand] will become the region’s largest OTT revenue source in 2018 before AVOD [advertising on OTT sites] regains its crown in 2020. The AVOD sector has been boosted by the rapid expansion in mobile advertising.
AVOD will bring in $5.79 billion by 2021 – $3 billion up on 2015. The UK will supply $2,333 million of the 2021 advertising total, followed by Germany with $904 million.
SVOD revenues will total $5,632 million by 2021 – up from $2,098 million in 2015. Nearly $1 billion will be added in 2016 alone. The UK (up by nearly $800 million between 2015 and 2021 to $1,507 million) will remain the SVOD revenue leader – generating as much as second-placed Germany and third-placed France combined in 2021.
Digital TV Research forecasts 53.71 million SVOD subscriptions by 2021, up from an expected 31.43 million by end-2016. More than 8 million subscribers will be added in 2016 alone. Nearly a third (30.7%) of the region’s TV households will subscribe to a SVOD package by 2021; triple the 13.6% recorded by end-2015.
Sweden will have more SVOD subscribers than Spain in 2021, despite only having a quarter of the population. Despite this, the number of subscriptions will quadruple in France and Italy between 2015 and 2021 and will grow eightfold in Spain.
Murray explained: “The Spanish SVOD sector is stifled as Telefonica provides its Yomvi SVOD platform free to its pay TV subscribers. Yomvi is no longer offered as a standalone service. This also degrades the perceived value of the other SVOD platforms.”
He continued: “France’s relatively low take-up is harder to explain as there is a good selection of SVOD platforms on offer. However, government-imposed release windows dictate that SVOD platforms can only screen movies well after they have appeared on other platforms.”
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