Study: Streaming Subscriptions Expected to Rise by 143 Million in 2023; Latin America to Drive Growth

While 2022 was certainly not a year of smooth sailing for the streaming industry, it seems that the fourth quarter recovery may be the beginning of a new upward trend. According to a new study from Television Business International and Omdia, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services are expected to reach a total of 1.7 billion subscribers worldwide in 2023, an increase of 143 million from the previous year.

What’s expected to be the driving factor in the continued uptick? According to Omdia’s Maria Rua Aguete, it’s due to the launch of more ad-supported content by many streaming services, which she explained recently at the Content Americas convention.

“While 2020 was a year for the records, 2023 will be a year of industry-wide cooling despite the myriad services coming from big Hollywood players – but the launch of advertising tiers for many of these players means that 2023 will still be a year of growth,” Aguete said.

These ad-supported tiers, which allow people to save money while still enjoying content from their favorite streaming platforms, have been slow to grow for certain companies, but are proving to be a significant driver of new and returning subscribers.

While 2023 is not expected to reach anywhere near the heights of growth achieved in 2020 in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the projected growth is certainly nothing to sneeze at, especially as platforms continue to reach maturity and saturation in the United States and in other established markets. Platforms will also benefit from the fact that content pipelines are mostly back in place, following the major disruptions to production caused by pandemic delays and shutdowns.

A large portion of the growth is expected to occur in Latin America, where Omdia projects there being 19 million new subscriptions during 2023. This growth will be most prevalent for Netflix, which is expected to gain 2.3 million subscribers from Brazil and Mexico over the coming year. The streaming giant added 1.76M customers in Q4 2022. Omdia is certainly not the first group to bank on streaming growth in Latin America, as it’s proving to be one of the fastest growing new markets in the industry.

The pandemic was both a blessing and a curse for the streaming business. It experienced unprecedented growth in 2020 due to the sheer number of people stuck inside their homes with no other choice but to stream television. On the other hand, pandemic restrictions caused major problems on the production side of the business, with countless shows facing delays and other issues. It also accelerated the growth of these platforms, forcing them to grow much more quickly than they would have under normal circumstances. Now, they must play catchup in order to retain and monetize the customers they accrued in recent years.