Video streaming services over the past two years (2020 and 2021), due to the COVID-19 pandemic, achieved more than they could have achieved in five years without the pandemic – but this period of growth has now ended, a new report says.
The gradual return to a more normal world is probably not the only factor playing a role in the slowdown of growth.
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Extended lockdowns meant that demand for at-home entertainment skyrocketed in the first two years of the pandemic. It came at a particularly good time for Apple, as Apple TV+ launched just a few months before the COVID-19.
The pandemic may not be over, but high vaccination rates and natural immunity from previous infections are seeing the world return to something much closer to pre-COVID-19 conditions, with all entertainment back in operation.
That's why demand for streaming video entertainment is returning to more normal levels — with more conventional levels of growth. For some services, that's meant losing subscribers. Netflix, for example, recently reported losing 200,000 subscribers and warned it could lose up to 2 million this quarter.
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It is a similar story to music streaming, with a reference last week saying that Apple Music was among the services that lost a total of one million subscribers in the United Kingdom in the past quarter.
Video streaming services show reduced growth
Variety reports the latest data and forecasts from the consulting giant PwC.
In 2022, SVOD services [Streaming Video On Demand] in the United States will generate revenue of $25.32 billion, up 13% from last year, according to the Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2022–2026 report by PwC, published on Monday. The segment is projected to reach $33.59 billion by 2026, representing a compound annual growth rate of 8.5% from 2021-26.
The 13% increase projected for this year is lower compared to the 19.5% increase in 2021 and a huge 27% increase in 2020 for SVO. The PwC study noted that, in the United States and many other parts of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed video streaming services earlier than they would have been in the same time period – a phenomenon «forward pull» observed by many services.
Information source: 9to5mac.com
