Almost one in five (19.4%) users of cable or DTH services in Poland are considering completely switching to OTT video.
However, according to Consumer Surveys 2019, produced by the Office of Electronic Communications (UKE) and looking at private customers, only 15.1% of pay-TV users would also be interested in signing up for a subscription video service such as Netflix and HBO Go, with majority (42.3%) willing up to PLN29 (€6.8) a month.
OTT users in Poland watch an average of 1.8 hours of SVOD content a day and 12.7 hours a week. Films are the most popular genre (73.4%), followed by series (61.1%), entertainment (18.9%), sport (16.3%) and information (13.1%).
When choosing subscription services the most important factor is price (52%), followed by the elasticity of content offered (38.4%), TV content offered (35.5%) and length of agreement (32%).
Significantly, traditional pay-TV services scored much better than OTT ones in such areas as customer service.
In resolving technical problems, for instance, the favourable scores were 72.2% vs 51.0%.
Despite these insights into the OTT market in Poland, two important findings stand out. Firstly, only 10.5% of respondents have heard of OTT (which encompasses such services as Skype, WhatsApp, Spotify and Netflix), rising to 21.6% among young people and 14% with higher education.
And secondly, the overwhelming majority (79.9%) of pay-TV (cable or DTH) subscribers either have no intention of changing their service or don’t know if they will in the next 12 months.
