According to Digital TV Research, western European OTT TV and video revenues will more than double between 2015 and 2021. However, growth rates are expected to vary considerably.
Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said, "OTT adoption is already high in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and the UK, but it has been much more muted in other countries such as France, Spain and Portugal."
OTT TV and video revenues in western Europe are expected to reach $14.64 billion in 2021, up from $6.40 billion in 2015. From the $8.25 billion in revenues to be added between 2015 and 2021, the UK is expected to contribute $2.30 billion, Germany $1.34 billion, France $1.13 billion and Italy $990 million. The UK is expected to remain the market leader by some distance.
Subscription VOD (SVOD) such as Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) is expected to become the region's largest OTT revenue source in 2018 before advertising on OTT sites regains the top spot in 2020. The ad-supported model sector has been boosted by the rapid expansion in mobile advertising.
Ad-supported OTT is expected to bring in $5.79 billion by 2021, $3 billion up on 2015. The UK is expected to supply $2.3 billion of the 2021 advertising total, followed by Germany with $904 million.
SVOD revenues are expected to total $5.6 billion by 2021, up from $2.1 billion in 2015. Nearly $1 billion is expected to be added in 2016 alone. The UK (up by nearly $800 million between 2015 and 2021 to $1.5 billion) is expected to remain the SVOD revenue leader, generating as much as second-placed Germany and third-placed France combined in 2021.
The research house forecasts 53.71 million SVOD subscriptions by 2021, up from an expected 31.43 million by end-2016. More than 8 million subscribers are expected to be added in 2016 alone. Nearly a third (30.7%) of the region's TV households are expected to subscribe to a SVOD package by 2021, triple the 13.6% recorded by end-2015.
Sweden is expected to have more SVOD subscribers than Spain in 2021, despite only having a quarter of the population. Despite this, the number of subscriptions is expected to quadruple in France and Italy between 2015 and 2021 and to grow eightfold in Spain.