Netflix’s international subscribers to overtake US in 2018

netflix-cafeNetflix’s international subscriber-base will overtake its US customer count in 2018, according to new independent research.

The Digital TV Research report claims that the subscription video-on-demand giant will have almost 118 million global paying subscribers by 2021, accounting for 27.5% of the world’s SVOD market.

By 2021, the US will contribute 44% of Netflix’s subscriber numbers but North America will still account for 52% of its subscription revenues, according to the research.

It predicted that Netflix’s overall revenues will double from US$6.37 billion in 2015 to US$13.14 billion in 2021

“We estimate that Netflix has distribution partnerships with 79 pay TV, telco or mobile operators across 44 countries. These partnerships include multinational deals with Liberty Global, Millicom/Tigo and Telia,” said Digital TV Research principal analyst, Simon Murray.

The figures were part of a wider study into the global SVOD market in which Digital TV Research predicted that the number of SVOD homes across 200 countries is expected to climb by 72.6% between 2016 and 2021.

The report claims that the number of SVOD households will grow by 70 million in 2016 alone. The figure is tipped to increase from 177 million in 2015 to an expected 248 million by end-2016, reaching 428 million by 2021.

“North America supplies most of these subscribers at present, but Asia Pacific will become the top region by 2019,” said Murray.

“This comes despite Netflix being unlikely to secure direct access in China and only making a limited impact in other major population centers such as India and Indonesia.”

The report claims that the US will have 127 million SVOD subscribers by 2021, while China will have 74 million.

Global SVOD revenues are tipped to reach US$32.18 billion in 2021 – up from the US$12.2 billion recorded in 2015 and an expected US$17.46 billion in 2016.

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