Another 400,000 households in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) signed up for at least one video streaming service in the three months to December 2021.
Kantar’s latest Entertainment on Demand study shows 17.1 million, 59% of households, are now subscribers. 34% of SVOD subscriptions taken out in the quarter were by households who were new to the SVOD category, with stacked subscribers (40%) now the largest single driver of new subscriptions.
Netflix’s Squid Game was the most enjoyed title in Q4, followed by Disney’s Hawkeye. However, despite taking 45% share of new SVOD subscribers, big-budget series, The Wheel of Time, was the only Prime Video title to make it into the top 10 most enjoyed titles across Great Britain, coming in fifth place.
Netflix’s customer base ostensibly remained flat, adding just 70,000 new subs, while Amazon Prime Video added 700,000 in the same period. The Netflix share of new subscribers is now closer to those of AppleTV+, NOW or BritBox than to Disney+ or Prime Video.
Dominic Sunnebo, Global Insight Director, Kantar, Worldpanel Division, said: “There are a number of growth options available to Netflix, but right now, it’s not employing any of them to great effect across Britain. 2022 is therefore going to be critical to its growth strategy. Whichever option it chooses will create risks, but they will be needed to drive growth in this maturing market.”
Kantar believes Netflix is close to saturation in Great Britain with around 43% of all households subscribing, or using the streamer, while the number of consumers who say they are considering or intending to take out Netflix in the next quarter actually fell. The organisation says the majority of subscribers who want Netflix already have it and the new headline-grabbing titles are not sufficient to hook more people in.