Tuesday, January 28, 2020

How Many Streaming Services Will Consumers Ultimately Buy?

Virtually nobody believes Netflix will be unaffected by new competition coming from Disney+, Peacock, Apple and HBOMax, as well as existing competition from Amazon Prime and Hulu. So far, Disney+ has gained about 20 million accounts in about a quarter. 

Still, use of Netflix penetration remained steady throughout 2019 while the penetration rates for both Hulu and Amazon Prime grew about six percent, according to MoffettNathanson and HarrisX .

Some 90 percent of Disney+ customers appear to buy Netflix as well. At least so far, it appears that Disney+ is complementary to Netflix, not cannibalizing it.

It is of course possible that market share could start to shift more significantly when HBO Max launches in May 2020 and Peacock launches in July. The issue is how many different services customers will be willing to buy. 

At the moment, that number seems to hover between two to three subscriptions in some studies; three to four subscriptions per household in others. 

So the issue is whether the market saturates at five or more subscriptions per household. 


That might seem a stretch, but some households looking at the landscape, and which services have “must see” content already estimate they might need to buy five different subscriptions. 


The other issue is that Netflix is the first global service. The others arguably will compete primarily in the U.S. market, to start. 


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