Pay-TV and SVoD Flourish within the Spanish Entertainment Market in 2019

Video Insights Market Analysis and Commentary

The Spanish video entertainment market is continuing to show impressive growth overall, with consumer spend set to exceed €3 billion in 2019 for the first time, helped by an improving economic environment as well as rapid modernisation of digital infrastructure. Remarkable growth is primarily driven by subscription uptake across both Pay-TV and SVoD services, whilst box office and transactional home video remain stable, according to Futuresource’s Spanish Video Insights report.

2019 is expected to be the sixth consecutive year of Pay-TV consumer spend growth, largely as a result of strong uptake of IPTV. Consumer spend reached €2 billion for the first time in 2018 and as a result, Pay-TV accounted for 70% of the overall video entertainment market.

Netflix & Amazon Thriving as SVoD Sees Phenomenal Growth

“16% of Spanish homes are expected have at least one SVoD subscription by the end of 2019, a fivefold increase since 2016,” commented Tristan Veale, Market Analyst at Futuresource Consulting, before adding, “Nearly a third of homes in 2023 are forecast to have one or more SVoD service, not far below the predicted number of Pay-TV households.”

Netflix and Amazon are spearheading the market, aided by SVoD integration with Pay-TV services and investment in local language production. Moving forward, by 2021 consumers combined will be spending half a billion euros on SVoD subscriptions per year, accounting for 17% of video spend in the home (including Pay-TV).

Netflix is the number one SVoD service and following a record addition of over 600,000 net adds throughout 2018, accounted for half of all SVoD subscriptions and a staggering three quarters of total market SVoD consumer spend. “The US based service commands a greater ARPU than any other SVoD service in Spain, with price rises in 2019 to continue to reinforce this position,” explained Veale.

The second largest streaming service Amazon Prime has also been a key growth driver, adding over 400,000 active video viewing subscribers in 2018. Like Netflix, it also announced price rises, although remains very competitively priced at €36 for the year for the full Prime suite of services, up from €20 in 2018.

Digital Video Growth Counteracting Physical Video Decline.

Transactional home video remains challenged and in 2019 is expected to fall by 5%. However, over the forecast period the market will level out as digital video growth equals physical video decline, with overall increases expected beyond 2023.

Spanish Video Spend Growth Forecast the Highest in Western Europe.

The year-on-year growth of the Spanish video market consumer spend is expected to outstrip all other Western European countries between 2019 and 2023. This is as a result of continued strong Pay-TV revenue growth in high single digits, whilst many other countries are flatlining or even beginning to decline. Furthermore, continued rapid SVoD uptake is anticipated, similar to the region as a whole, but coming from a comparably lower base. Furthermore, annual consumer spend is set to be 38% higher in 2023 than in 2019 at nearly €4.4 billion.

About the author

Tristan Veale

Throughout Tristan’s career he has provided thought leading research and insights on the consumption of Motion Pictures, Film and TV series. Now positioned as a leading analyst within the TV and Video content research team at Futuresource Consulting, Tristan informs content creators, distributors and CE manufacturers on the shifting and fragmenting media landscape, helping Futuresource’s clients stay up to date in terms of what consumers want to watch, where they want to watch it, and on which devices.