Media consumption in Sweden is increasingly characterized by online streaming services such as Spotify and Netflix. Three out of four 15-74-year-olds now use online streaming services to listen to music or watch video.

Youtube, Spotify and Netflix are the most popular online streaming services used. Youtube is free of charge, whereas Spotify is offered both as a basic ad-financed service free of charge, and a premium ad-free service. Netflix is pure pay.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that paid subscription services for both TV, music and film are growing rapidly. Spotify revolutionized the music industry when it launched its online music streaming service, enabling users to stream an unlimited amount of music for free or at the cost of a flat monthly fee. Today, Spotify holds 90% of the market for all paying online music streaming subscribers in Sweden.

The same applies for online video streaming. Since Netflix launched on the Swedish market in October 2012, the market for online video subscriptions (SVOD) has literally exploded. In Q3 2015, 30% of all Swedish households had an online video subscription and Netflix is by far the most popular service. Overall, one in three households subscribe to either Netflix or Spotify.

While digital subscription services increase in popularity, the interest for physical transactional media is decreasing. The negative trend is most evident for print, CD/DVDs and video/computer games. In many cases the number of households buying these products has declined by more than 50% since 2012. There is a shift from traditional to digital on the transactional side. However, digital online purchases have not been able to fully compensate for the decline on the traditional transactional media market. The growth of online transactional services is much more limited than the growth of online subscription services such as Netflix and Spotify.

–       It appears that Swedes prefer media services that are either free of charge or subscription based and that offer unlimited consumption. Today such services are available mainly for music and video. For many Swedish media consumers, Spotify and Netflix have become an integrated part of their everyday life, says Marie Nilsson, CEO of Media Vision.

Press release November 2015 ENG