Netflix and Amazon woes are temporary, says Deloitte
THE streaming slowdown for Netflix and Amazon is only temporary, with subscribers planning to return when the cost of living crisis eases.
A survey of viewers who had cut their streaming services to reduce pressure on their household finances found that more than half planned to resubscribe in the future.
A fifth of customers who had resubscribed over the past year said they regularly cancel and rejoin streamers to help manage costs, according to Deloitte’s digital trends data. It claimed that streaming subscriber churn – a measure of how many customers are ending their contracts – rose by four percentage points to 19pc this year.
Paul Lee, the global head of technology, media and telecommunications research at Deloitte, said: “The rapid acceleration in adoption of devices and services across the last two years was a marker of how important technology is to our daily lives and keeping us connected to the things, and people, we care about most.
“Our devices will continue to play an important role in daily life, but we are likely to see an ongoing pattern of consumers being more conscious of how much they use their tech.”
The Deloitte report comes after the media regulator Ofcom found that UK Amazon Prime customers fell by 590,000 in the second quarter of 2022, a drop of 5pc.
Amazon is poised to release the most expensive series of all-time when The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power launches on Sept 2.
However, it will also increase UK prices for new customers by £1 a month from Sept 15, meaning the annual cost of Prime subscription will rise from £79 to £95.
Netflix has also endured a 1pc fall in UK subscribers, down by 210,000 year on year to 17.1m during the second quarter, while Disney’s rate of growth slowed despite adding 1.8m subscribers to 6.6m over the period and becoming the world’s biggest streaming service.
Ofcom’s Media Nations report found the number of households subscribing to at least one streaming service had fallen by 350,000 to 19.2m.
The data call into question how resilient streaming services are to economic downturns despite some analysts claiming they have become a necessity households cannot do without.