Digital TV Research analyst Simon Murray has "completely revised" his forecasts in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic: "A major impact of lockdown has been a steep rise in SVOD subscriptions.”
Disney+ will reach 202 million subscribers worldwide by 2025, Digital TV Research analyst Simon Murray forecast in a Monday report. That is up from his previous estimate of 126 million and his initial estimate of 101 million.
"We have completely revised our forecasts for 138 countries in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic," Murray wrote. "A major impact of lockdown has been a steep rise in SVOD subscriptions.”
The analyst also boosted his forecast for how many global subscribers Netflix will reach by 2025 from 238 million to 258 million.
Total global streaming subscriptions will increase by 519 million between 2019 and 2025, or 81 percent, to 1.16 billion according to Digital TV Research's new projections. They will climb by 170 million in 2020 alone, the firm predicts.
Amazon, which Digital TV Research previously saw ranking ahead of Disney+ in terms of 2025 subscribers, is now estimated to reach 141 million subs, up from 134 million previously, to fall behind Disney, which in early April reported that Disney+ had reached 50 million paid subscribers.
HBO Max will have around 25 million subs in 2025, with Apple TV+ hitting 14 million, Murray's latest forecast says. That compares with his previous estimates of 30 million and 26 million, respectively.
The five global streaming platforms, led by Netflix and Disney, will account for 640 million of those paying SVOD subscribers by 2025, Murray now projects, up from his previous forecast of 553 million.
