New data reveals global video entertainment growth surge

Global spend on video entertainment continues to trend upwards, according to the latest data from Futuresource Consulting. The specialist research firm reports year-on-year industry growth of 6% in 2023, equating to a total annual spend of $324 billion, with further expansion anticipated this year. 

“We’re seeing strong positive signals across the breadth of the video landscape," says James Duvall, Head of Entertainment, Futuresource Consulting, “and that’s despite a variety of inflationary pressures weighing heavy on consumers. The sector achieved global growth of around 6% year-on-year for 2022 and 2023, and this year we expect a further $10 billion to go into the pot.” 

SVoD breaking barriers 

“SVoD is the sector’s golden child, punching through the $100 billion barrier during 2023, and ending the year on $112 billion. Much of this growth has been driven by a greater emphasis on price increases and the introduction of new tier structures, as most global services are now switching focus to financials over subscriber growth. And although Pay-TV maintains the largest value share within entertainment, by 2027 SVoD won’t be far behind.” 

In the AVoD sector, audience content choice has continued to expand, with the Futuresource Living with Digital survey now covering 17 channel operators. The Roku Channel and Pluto TV lead the way, with both reporting at least 75 million active monthly users. However, challenges for this sector include the battle for audience time, as well as the ad-based subscription packages now available from most streaming services. 

Box office closing in on pre-pandemic revenues 

“The box office also continues to bounce back from the pandemic,” says Duvall. “It posted a further 35% uplift last year, and moves ever closer to its pre-pandemic revenues. This was helped along by strong global performances from Barbie and the Super Mario Bros. The Movie. However, within the top 10 Global films of the year, two were driven by China-only revenues, with Full River Red and The Wandering Earth 2 generating close to $1.3 billion between them.” 

Futuresource notes that transactional spend also achieved growth in 2023, representing a 2% share of the total video category, and moved back above $8 billion for the first time in three years. 

Video outshines music and games 

Looking at the wider entertainment industry of video, music and games, the video entertainment segment accounts for around 59% of total global revenues. However, there are many regional differences. In North America, video accounts for 75% of entertainment spend, yet games leads the way in APAC, accounting for more than half of all consumer entertainment expenditure in the region. 

Futuresource Consulting’s Global Video Insights Outlook report provides analysis and forecasts for the video entertainment market, including box office, SVoD, Subscription Pay-TV, electronic sell-through (movie and TV), iVoD (movie), Pay-TV VoD (CVoD), and DVD and Blu-ray (sell-through and rental). For more information on this report or to make a purchase, please contact zak.azimov@futuresource-hq.com.  

About the author

James Duvall

James Duvall joined Futuresource as the Principal Analyst for Entertainment in November 2022. He is responsible for the delivery of all consumer research and projects across Home Entertainment, covering over twenty regions for Futuresource’s Video Insight reports, the bi-annual Living with Digital survey, and the bi-annual Music Streaming report. Before Futuresource, James spent six years leading the insight and research programme at the British Association of Screen Entertainment and the Digital Entertainment Group International (DEGI), building upon his wealth of experience within insight teams for US Studios.