The number of new sign-ups to subscription online video services in the United Kingdom fell back to 0.8 million in the second quarter of 2020. That follows a surge of 6 million new subscriptions in the first quarter of the year, driven by the start of coronavirus restrictions and the launch of Disney+. Amazon Prime Video led the latest signups, with a 45% share of new subscribers.
The numbers come from the Kantar Entertainment On-Demand survey, based on a longitudinal panel of 15,000 consumers and boosted by 2,500 new subscriber interviews each quarter.
The survey shows that Amazon Prime Video had a 45% share of new subscribers in the United Kingdom in the second quarter, up from 13% the previous quarter. That would amount to around 370,000 new Amazon subscribers, based on the survey figures. Amazon Prime subscribers benefit from free delivery for online shopping, which was boosted by coronavirus restrictions. Amazon Prime Video has seen an increase in customer advocacy
Disney+ received 22% of new subscribers, compared to 52% the previous quarter, in which it launched. That would be around 180,000 new subscribers in three months.
Netflix fell back to 12% of new subscriptions, down from 19%. Netflix continues to dominate in customer advocacy, with a Net Promoter Score of +46. Calculated as the percentage of promoters less the percentage of detractors, that is a strong but not outstanding score.
Now TV, powered by Sky, received 5% of new subscriptions, slightly lower than the previous quarter.
Those four services accounted for 83.6% of new subscriptions. Kantar did not break out the remaining 16.4%, which would have been around 135,000 subscriptions, based on its estimates.
That does not suggest significant growth for other services, like BritBox, which has yet to report figures since its launch in the United Kingdom in November 2019.
The largest contributor to new online video subscriptions in the second quarter were those taking out a subscription for the first time, contrasting with the first quarter, where those taking incremental subscriptions were the single largest group.
The BARB establishment survey shows that Netflix had 13.01 million homes in the first quarter of 2020. Amazon Prime Video had 7.86 million, while Now TV had 1.62 million. The BARB numbers did not include Disney+. All face-to-face interviewing for the establishment survey was suspended in mid-March. As a result, BARB is unable to report figures for the second quarter.