North American SVOD Most Mature, But Way to Go

The North America subscription video on demand (SVOD) market is ‘far from mature’ – at least, according to new figures from Digital TV Research.

North America had 50.6 million SVOD homes (excluding sports) at the end of last year. The figure represents 38.8% TV household penetration, and 48.1% fixed line broadband household penetration. This represents significant growth from the 16.7 million homes (13% of TV households) in 2010. Therefore, North America is the world’s most mature SVOD market.

However, ‘most mature’ does not mean ‘mature’. 7.1 million more SVOD homes are forecast to be added this year, alone. DTVR expects there to be 76.5 million homes by 2020 – up by 26 million from 2014 – representing 57.3% penetration of TV households and 65.2% of broadband households.

From $0.79 billion in 2010, revenues will rise to $4.46 billion in 2014 and almost $7.1 billion in 2020 (59% growth between 2014 and 2020). Meanwhile, OTT revenues will reach $20.5 billion in 2020, up from $2.6 billion in 2010 and the expected $13.2 billion in 2015.

DTO revenues will rise to almost $2.2 billion in 2020, from $1.2 billion in 2014. Films will contribute 65%, with the rest from TV series. OTT TV and video rental/pay-per-view is also set to expand: from $591 million (2014) to $999 million (2020). Films will, again, be the main earner ($715 million by 2020).