Data from Roy Morgan Research shows that within two months of its local launch, over a million Australians across 400,000 households had signed up to Netflix, the latest Streaming Video On Demand (SVOD).
Netflix launched in Australia on March 24, although some estimates say over 200,000 of us may have previously signed up to the service, using geo-blocks to stream US or UK content. Officially, in April, 766,000 Australians in 296,000 homes were subscribed. By May, this had grown to 1,039,000 in 408,000 households.
The $40 billion US giant has clearly taken an early—and perhaps insurmountable—lead in the new world of on-demand subscription television in Australia, securing over ten times more subscriptions than its nearest (and locally owned) competitors.
By May, just 97,000 Australians were subscribed to Presto, from Foxtel and Seven West Media; 91,000 had Stan, which Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media launched in January; 43,000 had Quickflix, the long-established ASX-listed former DVD-delivery service (just like Netflix once was); and 40,000 had Foxtel Play, the streaming version of its Pay TV.
Number of Australians in May 2015 with streaming TV subscription service
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source, May 2015 n = 2,088 Australians 14+
The question is will the numbers flatten or decline as the introductory free trials end—or really rocket up now the latest season of Game of Thrones has finished on Foxtel? On the other hand the anti-piracy legislation now passed by the Government may just accelerate the rate of take-up.
