A new study by Kantar indicates that streaming services in the United States continued to grow in the fourth quarter of 2022. Despite the many changes that have recently befallen the streaming industry, it appears that consumers in the United States are still well within the thrall of these services and investing more than ever in their streaming experiences.
Early 2022 found Netflix experiencing its first quarterly drop in subscribers in over a decade, a development that seemed like a possible early omen of doom for the once-flourishing streaming market. But the year-end data shows that streaming services as a whole continue to grow at a steady rate, with the total number of households with video streaming rising by 2.5 million to reach a whopping 115.6 million total. That means that streaming has found itself in a staggering 89% of U.S. households.
Part of why this growth has been able to occur is because of the popularity of customers stacking multiple services on top of each other to round out their streaming experience. More than ever, households find themselves accessing multiple different services, climbing to 5.4 per household in Q4 2022, up slightly from 5.2 in Q3. With more and more options becoming available, people’s desire to have access to as much content as possible continues to increase. Seven percent of households utilized a new streaming platform for the first time in Q4, showing that as more services roll out and or expand their offerings, consumers are still very willing to try new options.
Prime Video, Peacock, and Paramount+ find themselves leading the pack in terms of growth, with Amazon, in particular, benefiting greatly from their acquisition of “Thursday Night Football.” Live sporting events helped to drive 9% of new subscriptions to streaming, making its biggest impact to date. But the NFL isn’t the only piece of content driving sign-ups; shows like “Yellowstone” and “House of the Dragon” were also top drivers of sign-ups in Q4 according to the Kantar study, showing that when it comes to streaming, investing in content is still king.
With this in mind, Kantar’s study suggests that services like HBO Max, which has made the divisive decision to cut its content libraries in order to save money, may have trouble competing against services that are more dedicated to growing and maintaining their catalogues of content.
Going into 2023, it will be interesting to see how these trends play out. Services like Prime Video and Paramount+ are seemingly on the rise, while analysts believe HBO Max is about to stagnate. Paramount+ in particular has been able to achieve massive recent gains, with the service seeming closer than ever to its lofty goal of reaching 100 million subscribers by 2024. While analysts still believe Netflix will reign supreme over its competitors for the foreseeable future, the landscape of streaming continues to grow in both scale and competition.