On October 26th of last year, HBO Nordic was exchanged for the broader Warner service HBO Max in the Nordic countries. New figures from Mediavision show that this had a noticeable effect on the total number of Nordic SVOD subscriptions. Thanks to the re-launch, the service is now back on the Nordic SVOD top-three list, with an average Nordic household penetration of just below 20%.

In 2019, shortly after the last season of Game of Thrones premiered, HBO Nordic reached new hights with close to 2 million subscribing households (15-74-years-olds). After that and up until the HBO Max launch, the service lost approximately 400 000 subscribing households.

Mediavision can now show that the launch of HBO Max has resulted in HBO not only regaining what was lost, but that it has also added new customers. The bounce-back amounts to more than 635 000 new subscribing households. HBO has thereby reclaimed its position as the third biggest SVOD service in the Nordics, with 2.2 million subscribing households. This is the highest number for HBO ever recorded by Mediavision.

– The launch of HBO Max has had a direct, positive, effect on the total number of Nordic SVOD subscriptions. However, the effect on household penetration is less substantial. The vast majority of the new customers already held at least one subscription to another service. This means that HBO Max has pushed “stacking” on the Nordic market. This is similar to what we saw when Disney Plus launched in the fall of 2020, comments Marie Nilsson, CEO of Mediavision. Our conclusion is that despite a clearly maturing market in terms of SVOD household penetration, we can still expect a continuous growth of subscriptions. The demand for strong content has still not reached its’ peak in the Nordics.