The LA Virtual Screenings began their 2021 edition raising one of the most talked about and uncertain topics in the industry: what is the future of streaming. During the session "The future of streaming: what is next?", María Rua Aguete, Senior Research Director of media research company Omdia, analyzed key data and insights about the segment.
The first tendency noted by Omdia was that cord cutting has now spread significantly around the world, a phenomenon that goes in parallel with a massive online growth. In particular, Brazil and Australia are the markets where streaming is growing the most, with 48% and 45%, respectively. These markets are followed by Singapore (also with 45%), United States (37%) and Mexico (36%). On the other hand, the pay TV numbers are decreasing in every studied territory, being Mexico and the Middle East the ones that are feeling the least impact.
According to the expert, all the growth in the next five years will come from streaming video. In terms of revenues, pay TV is going to maintain a flat growth until 2025, but online video services are going to increase from US$1.1 billion in 2020 to US$1.6 billion in 2025. Furthermore, Omdia predicts 500 million of OTT net adds in the next five years.
However, there are certain markets where the pay TV is still growing, such as France (+2%), Portugal (+2%), CEE (+2%), India (+1%), Russia (+2%), Africa (+9%), South Africa (+16%), Indonesia (+6%) and Malaysia (+3%). In these last two markets, in fact, the streaming business is actually decreasing, -24% and -8.7%, respectively.
Later, Rua Aguete compared the markets of North America and Latin America, where she observed a big difference in terms of the growth of streaming services. While in the north of the continent the space seems to be getting increasingly crowded, in Latin America a sharp rise of the OTT segment is forecast. Another highlight was the growth of AVOD, a model that is also set for a bright future.
Regarding the future, Omdia’s analysis shows that one in two net OTT adds in the next five years will come from the APAC region. In terms of spending, the research assured that D2C launches have saturated the market, and that total pricing now matches pay TV ARPU, although partnerships are the way for companies to offset costs. In the SVOD arena, Disney arises as the new domintant powerhouse, as it is predicted to lead the US market in 2025.
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