Parks Associates Announces OTT Video Market Tracker Service Update

Parks Associates today announced new international data from the company’s OTT Video Market Tracker service showing OTT video usage in Western Europe is continuing to expand, with 55% of U.K. broadband households and 51% in France watching TV programming and movies online, compared to 70% in the U.S. However, the number of paid subscriptions in Europe is significantly lower, where 30% of broadband households in the U.K. and 17% in France subscribe to OTT video, compared to 64% of U.S. broadband households.

“OTT is definitely gaining traction across Europe. We are seeing new OTT video services spring up but not as many as in North America,” said Brett Sappington, Director of Research, Parks Associates. “In many parts of Europe, pay-TV penetration is lower than the U.S., and European consumers have been reluctant to pay for video in the past due to so many ‘free’ options such as the BBC iPlayer. But, as more pay options enter the market, with content unavailable anywhere else, they are slowly changing the culture of video viewing in Europe.”

Fueled by interest in the iPlayer and popular OTT video services from Netflix, Sky, and Amazon, the U.K. remains one of the top markets in Europe for OTT video services. New services are emerging in France, including a new transactional video service from well-known retailer FNAC, but Netflix has struggled in the French market, despite partnerships with many of France’s leading pay-TV providers.

“In the U.S. and Canada, the quickly increasing volume of new options is driving high numbers of online viewing of TV and movies,” Sappington said. “Each service is bringing new experiences for consumers, and many are providing new content that is unavailable elsewhere.”

AT&T, Sony, and HTC have been the most recent to announce new OTT video services in the U.S. market, and Spotify recently added video to its freemium OTT music service. PlayStation Vue also recently became available nationwide across the U.S.

“Consumers are trying and subscribing to more services,” Sappington said. “We saw a big increase in the number of households subscribing to multiple OTT video services in the U.S. market at the end of 2015.”

The OTT Video Market Tracker is an annual service with monthly and quarterly updates that provides comprehensive industry monitoring and insights into new trends and services, including discovery and analysis on new OTT video service players. It tracks content and subscriber counts for well over 100 OTT video services in North America and dozens across European markets.

For more information about the OTT Video Market Tracker and related research, contact [email protected]. To schedule an interview with an analyst or to request specific data, please contact Holly Sprague at [email protected].

About Parks Associates: Parks Associates, a woman-founded and certified business, is an internationally recognized market research and consulting company specializing in emerging consumer technology products and services. Founded in 1986, Parks Associates provides business intelligence and research services through its proprietary methodologies developed over decades, including quarterly surveys of 10,000 internet households.

The company's expertise crosses many industries: home security and smart home, streaming video, broadband and pay-TV services, digital media and platforms, gaming, Wi-Fi and home networks, connected health, support, consumer electronics, home control systems, energy management, and tech solutions for the multi-dwelling (MDU), small-to-medium business (SMB), and commercial building markets.

Each year, Parks Associates brings thousands of leaders together for its webinars and annual events. The firm hosts the annual executive research and strategy conferences CONNECTIONS™, Connected Health Summit, Smart Energy Summit, Smart Spaces, and Future of Video. https://www.parksassociates.com
 

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