The growth of international streaming markets and the relative maturity of the North American streaming market continues to alter the global streaming landscape with Western Europe is set to surpass North America in 2024 in terms of streaming homes with at least one subscription streaming service, according to new research from Ampere Analysis.

The UK and Germany driving much of this growth in Western Europe, the study found. North America (USA plus Canada) will fall to the world’s third-largest geographic region for streaming homes after Asia, and now Western Europe, according to the research from Ampere Analysis.  

“Streaming saturation in North America is the primary driver for reduced growth,” explained Guy Bisson, executive director at Ampere Analysis. "Other world regions still have headroom for new customers, both in terms of customers entirely new to streaming and in the number of services taken in each home. North America also losing its place as the largest revenue generating region can only accelerate the existing trend for focusing content investment on key growth markets having long-term implications for the US production sectors and for inward investment into Asia and Europe.”

With countries outside of North America forecast to drive streaming growth, the region will no longer account for the majority of streaming revenue and North America will fall below 50% of global revenue in 2024, the researchers also reported. 

These trends have important implications for content investment, the study also found. Global streamers have been increasingly targeting international markets for production to satisfy the demands of audiences outside the US and bolster further growth in regions with the most potential for new customer acquisition. Already only 43% of Netflix’s upcoming series are being made in the USA and other streamers are following suit. Amazon Prime and Disney+ also now make fewer than 50% of their upcoming shows in the USA and Paramount+ is rapidly heading the same way.

With Asia holding the crown as the fastest-growing and largest region for streaming, it is likely to see the biggest increase in focus for content investment with a knock-on effect for viewers who will see more and more Asian-origin content on their streaming platforms. Western Europe, too, will become increasingly influential as a source of content on streaming as, moving forward, it is set to remain the second strongest region for streaming customers, the researchers said. 

MIDDLESEX, U.K.—The pay-TV heights of 2015 for North America are gone, and according to a new report from Digital TV Research, the $112 billion garnered in 2015 could drop to $62 billion by 2025.

These projections by Digital TV Research include pay-TV revenues from the U.S. and Canada for satellite TV, IPTV, digital cable TV and analog cable TV. None of these areas are immune from this forecasted $50 billion decline. Cable revenues are estimated to see a $22 billion drop—$3 billion from analog cable and 19 billion for digital; satellite will fall by $21 billion; IPTV by $7 billion.

“The loss of 42 million pay TV subscribers between 2010 and 2025 is mostly responsible for this decline,” said Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research. “Operators now put more emphasis on broadband connections than on traditional pay TV channels.”

Murray also alludes to consumers growing use of OTT platforms as an alternative to pay-TV, like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime and others, which are often cheaper and allow for more control on how and when they can watch programs.

“The value of linear schedule for recorded programming is rapidly diminishing,” Murray said.

A separate report from Piplsay showed that 66% of Americans have access to OTT services.

Digital TV Research’s “North America Pay TV Forecasts” report can be acquired online.

LONDON—When 2019 closes, data and analytics company GlobalData estimates that there will be 147 million subscribers to SVoD services throughout North America. However, more than 90% of that comes from the U.S. market alone.

This was one of the key findings of GlobalData’s “OTT Video Content, Pricing and Market Opportunity in the Americas” report. With such a huge chunk of the market in the region, the U.S. is one of the most competitive SVoD markets in the world, per GlobalData. The emergence of SVoD platforms is also helping to drive consumers’ cord-cutting trends.

Building off of the estimated 147 million subscribers at the end of 2019, GlobalData forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 9% through 2023. This projection builds off not only already popular streaming services like Netflix and HBO, but also new ones that have or will be launched in the near future.

“The recent launch of new SVoD Platforms Apple TV+ and Disney+ will heat up competition in the U.S. market even further, increasing pressure not only on traditional pay-TV operators but also on incumbent SVoD platforms such as Netflix,” Eulalia Marin-Sorribes, technology analyst at GlobalData. She also cites the 2020 launch of HBO Max in the report.

The full “OTT Video Content, Pricing and Market Opportunity in the Americas” report is now available.