Netflix is winning the streaming war – Nielsen

There might be a lot of pretenders to the video streaming crown but data from the US demonstrates one thing; no-one comes near Netflix.

Hulu, HBO and Amazon Prime might boast and posture about success, but the true measure of victory for a content giant is eyeballs on the screen. According to data from entertainment data firm Nielsen, streaming services now account for 19% of the total TV usage across the final quarter of 2019, with Netflix taking a considerable chunk of the audience.

Perhaps one of the most interesting statistics to emerge from this data is the consumers increased appetite for data.

As it stands, 60% of US consumers subscribe to more than one paid video streaming service. As more options have emerged, 93% of the survey respondents suggest they will either increase or keep their existing streaming services.

One of the big questions which has been circulating the industry for the last few months is how tolerant will consumers wallets be to the increased number of service providers? The market is already fragmented, with more launches on the horizon, though a household will subscribe to more than one service which will offer encouragement to those dreading the prospect of a head-to-head battle with Netflix.

Looking at the reasons behind the purchase, it is not particularly surprising. Cost, ease of use, availability of content and streaming quality are the top reasons anyone would purchase a service.

While it might seem obvious to state, some have clearly not got the memo; user experience is just as important as the content and pricing strategies which have been employed. Sky has ruled the linear TV market in large blocks of Europe for decades because the user experience has been the highest quality, and few can compete with the simplistic and functional set-up which Netflix has created.

Interestingly enough, with the aggressive volume of content which will be available to consumers, the discovery function is going to be important. This will drastically impact the user’s ability to locate relevant content and perhaps the appetite to trial new services. If user experience is completely satisfactory, then why would they look elsewhere, the opposite can also be said to be true.

There might well be a tsunami of new services hitting the streaming market over 2020, including the wave making Disney+, but realistically for the moment, no-one is challenging Netflix for the content crown.