Australians cancelled more than 1.3 million video streaming subscription in the final three months of 2022, a sign of inflationary concerns mixed with users bouncing from one service to another.
This is according to research company Kantar, who issued its Entertainment On Demand survey.
6.11 million Australian households subscribe to at least one service, with Netflix commanding 76.8 per cent of the market. Amazon Prime and Disney Plus follow far behind, with 33.4 per cent and 31.2 per cent of households having these services.
Although Netflix lost local subscribers, for the fourth consecutive quarter, the mass churn was led by Apple TV+, which has a 22 per cent churn rate, Optus Sport, which lost 20 per cent once it decide to charge for its service, and YouTube Premium, with 18 per cent.
A lot of this churn is due to the large uptake during the pandemic. Streaming subscriptions jumped 22 per cent in the 2022 financial year.
Australians have an average of 3.4 streaming accounts, down from 3.5 per cent in the September quarter.
“The decline has slowed this quarter, but if you think about the average household having 3.5 services, there are definitely people thinking about how they can cut back a little bit,” Kantar’s Tamsin Timpson said.
“It’s declined by 0.1 quarter-on-quarter – but across households, that’s quite a big number. People are being a bit more discerning about what they spend their money on.
“Streaming platforms used to cost $6 or $7 a month, but they’re more expensive now.
“A far higher than average proportion of those who have cancelled their Netflix service in the fourth quarter of 2022 cited the need to save money as their primary reason.”
Of new subscribers, which totally 490,000, Prime Video scored 19.7 per cent, followed by Paramount Plus at 16 per cent, Disney Plus at 11.6 per cent, and Binge, with 11 per cent.