The Nordic markets for online streaming services have been growing rapidly both in terms of subscribers and turnover the past years and SVOD (subscription video on demand) is eating larger chunks of total household spend on TV and video services. It is, however, the global giants that are the true winners.

Ending the year 2016, approx. 3.8 million Nordic households had at least one SVOD subscription. That is a net addition of more than 600 000 households compared to the same period last year. And growth is expected to continue in 2017, with 2 in 5 Nordic households holding an SVOD subscription within a year.

However, for the most part the growth in the market will be credited to global media giants. Today, US giants such as Netflix and HBO together account for almost 60 percent of all SVOD subscriptions in the Nordics. If we instead of subscriptions look at viewing habits, the Google entity Youtube and Netflix account for almost half of all online viewing time an average day 2016.

Netflix’ success is no coincidence. In order to offer unique content, Netflix has made huge investments in original programming over the past years and 2017 is said to be a new all time high. According to David Wells, CFO at Netflix, the company is striving towards half of its content being original productions over the next few years.

– Towards 2017 the competition is expected to be intensified. Services such as Amazon entering the Nordic OTT space and local actors trying to reclaim ground will likely fuel further OTT growth. That is why content – and mainly original content – will be all the more crucial in the years to come. We will continue to follow the market development closely in 2017, as the next wave of OTT services hits the Nordic markets, says Marie Nilsson, CEO at Mediavision.

press release December 2016.pdf

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