The number of households with paid-for streaming services such as Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) Prime and Disney+ fell in the first quarter as the cost-of-living crisis forces homes to cut back on spending.
Research by Kantar Worldpanel, a data analytics firm, found the number of UK homes with at least one paid-for streaming service fell by 215,000 in the first quarter.
Kantar said there were 1.51mln cancellations, outweighing new subscriptions at 1.29mln, with 16.9mln households having at least one paid-for subscription service.
“The evidence from these findings suggests that British households are now proactively looking for ways to save, and the subscription video-on-demand market is already seeing the effects of this,” said Dominic Sunnebo, global insight director at Kantar, as quoted in the Guardian.
According to the Guardian, that ends ten years’ worth of growth in paid-for streaming services as inflation runs at a three-decade high and households begin to cut back on spending.
Further cancellations are to be expected, with Kantar’s research suggesting 38% of consumers are planning to cancel at least one video streaming service to save money.
Netflix and Amazon Prime Video experienced the lowest number of customers leaving according to the data, while Disney+ saw its cancellations triple to 12% quarter-on-quarter.
“Among homes that subscribe to streaming services, Netflix is consistently ranked number one in importance regardless of what platform it is put up against,” Sunnebo added.