Six per cent of Dutch households without Netflix expect to subscribe – or re-subscribe – to the SVOD service, according to Telecompaper’s Video behaviour of Dutch consumers report for the second quarter of 2020.
Fox Sports and newcomer Disney+ (active in the Netherlands since the end of last year) can also expect growth in the short term, according to the report. However, where paid streaming services are growing in volume, streaming services on an advertising basis are lagging behind. However, the current recession and international developments such as new AVOD services may cause a change here.
Although the penetration of Netflix in households is already at 40%, the service is still attracting new subscribers with 6% of Dutch households expecting to subscribe to Netflix sometime in the next six months. An equal number of people expect to subscribe to Disney + in the next six months. This confirms the status of (substantively attractive) newcomer to Disney’s streaming service.
Whereas in the second quarter of 2019 two-thirds of households subscribing to a streaming service only had Netflix, one year later only half had Netflix. The arrival of Disney seems to be the main reason for this. Meanwhile, 16% of households with a subscription to a streaming service combine Disney and Netflix, whether or not in combination with other services such as Amazon Prime and Videoland.
The most popular combination remains Netflix with the Dutch Videoland for the fifth quarter in a row. Whereas the vast majority of Netflix subscribers have Netflix as their only streaming service, Videoland and Disney+ are often purchased in combination with another service.
When it became known that sports events would start again in the third quarter of this year, the intention to subscribe to premium sports packages (for the next six months) increased rapidly from the second quarter onwards. Fox Sports in particular is a popular subscription package. This is also the service that was hit hardest by the lockdown measures in place in the Netherlands between March and June.
Compared to paid streaming services, the market for streaming services based on an advertising model (AVOD) is still limited in the Netherlands. However, the economic recession may increase the popularity of AVOD services when consumers decide to spend less on streaming services.
Apart from YouTube, which reached 80 percent of the Dutch population in the last three months, the Dutch mainly watch NPO Start, RTLXL and KIJK. SVOD service Videoland is already taking a small step towards AVOD: with its new hybrid proposition (July 2020), subscribers pay considerably less for the cheapest subscription, but get to see advertisements.
Worldwide, there is a steadily growing number of streaming services launching an advertising proposition, such as Warner Media’s recent HBO and the Vuit joint venture in the US. It is possible that these services will also come to the Netherlands in due course. This will certainly lead to a positive boost for this category.
