Paramount+ and Apple TV+ have seen the biggest gains in paid subscribers of the major SVoD players over the past quarter, according to data from research firm Kantar.
In its Entertainment on Demand (EoD) Q3 Barometer report, Kantar found that Paramount+ and Apple TV+ recorded the top two spots for share of new paid subscribers.
Paramount+ accounted for 13% of paying sign-ups ahead of Apple TV+’s 12% share. The next best was Disney+ which recorded 11% share of new subscribers in adding 10% to its global figure.
In Q3, Apple TV+ saw the most growth of an individual platform, boosting its subscribers by just under a fifth (17%), while Paramount+ jumped by 12%. Although Kantar does not breakdown individual SVoD subscriber numbers, statistics website Statista puts Apple TV+’s most recent global figure at around 25m, while Paramount+ hit 60.7m in Q2. According to its own figures, Disney+’s global subscribers for the core service reached 105.7m.
Kantar’s research covers major English-language-speaking countries and countries with substantial SVoD cut-through the US, UK, Australia, Spain, France and Germany.
According to the EoD report, both Paramount+ and Disney+ saw its biggest gains in the UK, while Apple TV+ saw its strongest growth in Germany.
Andrew Skerratt, global insight director, at consumer research arm Kantar Worldpanel, who leads the team behind the EoD report, said the three streamers’ strong content offering has driven the growth with Apple TV+ led by football comedy Ted Lasso, Idris Elba airline thriller Hijack, and sci-fi drama Foundation.
For Apple TV+ over a third of new subscribers stated specific titles for their reasoning behind signing up to the service in Q3 (37%).
Paramount+’s Taylor Sheridan Yellowstone franchise was a driver with the eponymous flagship series and prequel 1883 standing out alongside classic brand Star Trek. “Again the sign-ups were very much content-led, with almost a fifth of new subscribers (19%) searching for [specific] Paramount+ content which led them to subscribe.”
Netflix still dominant
Other data from the EoD report shows that Netflix remains the dominant streamer in the countries analysed, with it present among two-thirds of streaming households. Despite a turbulent 2022, Skerratt told Broadcast that in the last six months, the streamer has “maintained [its level] and started growing again”.
Its ad-supported tier is also slowly starting to take hold. After Kantar reported the tier struggled to attract subscribers at the beginning of the year, the company said it now accounted for one out of every three new subscribers during the third quarter. Netflix reported last week its ad-supported subscribers increased more than 70% from Q2 to Q3.
Skerratt warned that Netflix would need to continue improving the tier to ensure it maintained its level as the top Netflix for consumers.
“New Netflix subscribers are being attracted via the ad-tier. However, when examining subscriber preferences, only 39% of ad-tier subscribers rank Netflix as their #1 service, with 51% of ad-free subscribers ranking it #1,” he said. “Netflix need to integrate a seamless ad-experience, encouraging increased usage, and consequently positioning itself as a more valuable service within a household’s portfolio.”
This story first appeared on Screen’s sister site Broadcast
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