The growth of streaming is slowing down, according to the latest research from global consultancy Simon-Kucher into consumer streaming behavior and preferences. In its second annual “Global Streaming Study,” Simon-Kucher revealed that only 40% of respondents indicate they stream more compared to last year – this is down nine percentage points from the number of consumers who indicated their streaming habits were up year-over-year in 2022. The study also revealed the average number of owned subscriptions per respondent globally is 2.4 – down 14% from last year.
“While streaming was on the rise over recent years, we are now seeing some evidence of saturation in the market. A broad variety of providers are fighting for the time and budgets of consumers. As consumers are becoming more and more price sensitive, cancellations will also become more likely unless service providers are able to meet consumer expectations and prove the value of their product,” said Lisa Jaeger, Partner and Global Head of Technology, Media & Telco at Simon-Kucher.
As compared to last year, streaming of both movies and series has remained constant: 78% of consumers spend more than two hours per week watching movies, while 70% spend more than two hours per week watching TV series. Live events – such as sports – are significantly lower at only 41% of consumer spending more than two hours per week watching these.
Year-over-year, purchase criteria is largely unchanged, Simon-Kucher noted. Price is the most important purchase criterion, followed by breadth of content available. The importance of frequency of new content is down four percentage points, potentially due to the amount of new players and content on the market. When compared to last year, price is slightly more important (an increase of four percentage points), indicating a trend of increasing price sensitivity. Compared to last year, willingness-to-pay per subscription decreased by 27% on average, while overall willingness-to-pay per month on streaming services decreased by 8% on average.
In India, United States, Brazil, Spain, and Sweden, respondents have already exceeded their streaming budgets with existing subscriptions – so to add a new subscription, an existing one would likely be canceled. Meanwhile, in Singapore, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, UK, and France, budgets are almost used up with very little room for price increases of existing services or to add new low-priced subscriptions.
Among survey respondents, 37% would cancel an existing subscription in favor of a new one, and only 38% of respondents would not cancel an existing subscription, or make savings elsewhere when subscribing to a new streaming service. As compared to last year, consumers are increasingly inclined to cancel existing subscriptions (an increase of three percentage points), suggesting an increasing degree of market saturation.
Additionally, approximately 30% of respondents canceled a subscription within the last year, and 40% intend to cancel one within the upcoming year. China had the biggest drop in streaming subscriptions per respondent (a 43% decrease), while Brazil (no change) and Spain (a three percent increase) are the only countries that have not seen a decline in streaming subscriptions.
While streaming was on the rise over recent years, we are now seeing some evidence of saturation in the market.” Lisa Jaeger Partner and Global Head of Technology, Media & Telco at Simon-Kucher
