SVoD claims 66% of UK home entertainment market revenues

The entertainment landscape is shifting at remarkable speed, but it might surprise a few to see the internet giants are hording such a monstrous proportion of the wealth.

According to the latest statistics from the British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE), the home entertainment sector grew by 9.5% in 2019, bringing the total market value to £2.6 billion. Subscription video on demand (SVoD) accounted for 65.9% of this total, with Amazon and Netflix leading the charge in the UK.

“The UK’s creative industries make a significant contribution to both GDP and the broader employment landscape, something likely to be further enhanced by the success of emerging SVoD platforms and by the response to that from other quarters,” said Kevin Dersley, Co-Vice Chair of BASE.

“All of this change endorses the buoyancy of film and TV content but as a category we must ensure we’re fleet of foot and part of the ongoing digital revolution mentioned earlier. We know that audiences find enormous value in our content and the first half of 2020, packed with diverse new IP as well as must-see franchise titles, should serve as the perfect reminder that in a market of consumers hungry for content, there’s plenty of room for those able to adapt.”

As Dersley points out, while this is an impressive number, there is plenty of room for growth as the concept of SVoD is adopted by more demographics and additional platforms are launched.

Looking at the current UK market, Netflix and Amazon are clear market leaders, 9.9 million and 7.7 million subscriptions respectively, though Now TV, Sky’s answer to the OTT trends, also has a notable presence. Perhaps one of the more interesting developments over the course of 2020 will be the emergence of new competition.

BritBox and Apple TV+ have already launched in the market, while Disney+ will enter the fray on March 31. The marketing assault has not been felt in the UK just yet, but analysts are predicting with some venom these three services will aggressively attempt to carve a slice of the incredibly profitable pie being selfishly horded by Netflix and Amazon currently.

While these figures are of course noteworthy, because the most interesting development tied to these services is the shift towards mobile consumption of content.

Although traditional broadcasters are creating more VoD services and answering the mobility demands of consumers, the hand is generally being forced. The likes of YouTube and Netflix are driving the shift towards mobile consumption of content, and trends are accelerating.

Twitter has said that 90% of the videos viewed on its platform are from mobile devices, while more than 50% of all YouTube’s content is consumer via mobile. Cisco predicts that 82% of all mobile internet traffic will be video by 2022. Consumers are ditching the laptops and consuming more content via mobile.

SVoD is already making a considerable dent in the wallet, but with more services to be launched and more consumers intrigued by mobile consumption, there is still plenty of room for growth.