Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT Group) has announced it will launch its Viaplay streaming service in the Netherlands in Q1 2022.
The service will become the exclusive Dutch home of Formula 1 in a three-year deal to 2024 and Bundesliga football until 2029.
Commenting on the upcoming launch, Anders Jensen, NENT Group president and CEO, said: “The Netherlands is an ideal market for Viaplay and a very attractive next step towards our ambition of becoming the European streaming champion. Our long-term and multi-market partnerships with key sports rights owners, together with our ever-increasing line-up of original and exclusive content, will enable us to offer Dutch viewers something new and unique. When bringing Viaplay to a new market, we look for clear opportunities to grow, innovate, collaborate and take leadership. The Netherlands delivers on all counts.
“Given the content offerings that we will now have for our international markets, I am confident that we will at the very least meet our target of 4.5 million international subscribers by the end of 2025. We look forward to sharing further updates in the coming months and at our next Capital Markets Day in late September”.
Quoting data produced by Ampere Analysis, NENT Group says that today 98% of the Netherlands’ 8 million households have a broadband connection and 90% pay for a TV subscription. Of the 7.9 million TV households, 3.8 million have a video streaming subscription, with approximately 1.6 subscriptions per household. The total number of video streaming subscriptions is projected to grow from 6.1 million in 2020 to 10.3 million in 2025, and the penetration of video streaming services from 48% to 66%. The number of subscriptions per household is expected to increase to 1.9. Subscription video streaming revenues in the Netherlands are projected to grow from approximately €440 million in 2020 to €845 million in 2025.
The launch date, pricing and packaging of Viaplay in the Netherlands will be announced in due course.
Viaplay is currently available in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Viaplay will be launched in Poland in August and in the US in late 2021, followed by the Netherlands in Q1 2022 and then four additional markets by the end of 2023.
