According to DIGITAL TV RESEARCH, which publishes an annual report on the current state and future prospects of the SVOD market, there will be 15,570,000 paid SVOD subscriptions in 2028. This is a very low figure compared to the overall population of the countries studied: according to this study published a few days ago, less than 7% of households will have at least one subscription in 2028.
According to Simon Murray, the author of this study, there are many obstacles to the development of SVOD: household incomes are limited even in the most advanced countries, operators' OTT offerings are rare and expensive, and the implementation of platforms is still limited to a few countries.
However, all American platforms have launched or will do so in the coming months in one or more countries: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Paramount+, Showmax, Apple TV, etc. will share the approximately 16 million subscriptions expected in 2028.
Netflix, with 6.94 million subscriptions, will represent 45% of this market, Disney+ will reach 1.29 million subscriptions, mainly in Nigeria and South Africa, Paramount+ is expected only in South Africa, and Amazon Prime in Nigeria and South Africa in 2023. Amazon Prime Video is expected to grow strongly and reach 3 million subscribers in 2028, while Apple TV+, launched in eight African countries in 2019, will remain a minor player in 2028.
One might wonder what effect this heightened competition, which ultimately makes access to content more expensive for the public, will have on the development of this market.
Who will be able to afford multiple subscriptions to access all or even a significant portion of the best content? Which platform(s) will have the means to survive in the long term? Will we see a concentration of supply in a very small number of countries that are large enough? Will the OTT connection situation in Africa allow it to prevail over more traditional means of consuming content? How long will it take?
There are many questions surrounding this market, which nevertheless has enormous potential on paper.