Streaming video penetration remains high, reaching 85% of households in the third quarter of this year. Although that figure is actually slightly lower than it was in the previous quarter, subscribers are embracing the concept of stacking subscriptions. Recent data from Kantar revealed that subscribers had an average of 4.2 paid streaming subscriptions in Q3.
Kantar’s data indicates that those subscribing to more mature services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu are less likely to stack subscriptions. Indeed, a Q2 report from Kantar shows that Amazon Prime Video subscribers were less likely than others to stack streaming subscriptions.
However, it appears that subscribers to newer services are more likely to be stackers. For example, Paramount+ subscribers hold an average of 5.8 paid streaming subscriptions, while Discovery+ subscribers have an average of 5.6 subscriptions. Subscribers to Apple TV+ (5.3), Peacock (5.3) and HBO Max (5.2) also had an above-average number of streaming subscriptions in Q3.
Amazon Prime Video brought in the largest share of new subscribers in Q3 — accounting for 19% of total new US SVOD subscribers (excluding free and ad-supported services). That said, Kantar also notes that, despite the influx of new subscribers to Prime Video, the service also experienced a higher rate of churn, which resulted in a quarter-on-quarter loss in penetration.
Kantar also shares that 4.5 million consumers cancelled subscriptions in the third quarter of this year. Notably, 85% of those cancellations were from consumers who only subscribed to one service in Q2. And, while paid SVOD services saw penetration dip slightly between Q2 and Q3, there was growth in free ad-supported TV (FAST) and paid ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) tiers, with 14% accessing FAST services and 21% accessing AVOD services.
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