Orange is the New Black Still - H 2014
Courtesy of NetflixNetflix has signed up over 400,000 households in the two months since its launch in Australia, reaching at least 1 million consumers, according to figures released on Tuesday by Roy Morgan Research.
Roy Morgan, one of Australia’s most respected market research companies, said that Netflix’s reach in Australia was more than 10 times that of its nearest competitors. Netflix, itself, doesn’t release exact subscriber numbers.
Roy Morgan’s Streaming Video On Demand (SVOD) data says that 1.039 million users in 408,000 households had signed up to Netflix in May, up from 766,000 Australians in 296,000 homes in April. Netflix launched down under on March 24.
What the data doesn’t show, however, is how many of those are paid up subscribers versus trialists, with Netflix offering a range of free trials from one month to 12 months via its telco partners. Nor does it show how many of those users are signed up to the Netflix U.S. service via virtual private networks (VPNs).
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Netflix’s performance in Australia was streets ahead of its domestic rivals. By May, Roy Morgan said that just 97,000 Australians were subscribed to rival Presto, the SVOD service operated jointly by pay TV giant Foxtel and broadcaster the Seven Network; 91,000 had Stan, which Nine Entertainment Co. and Fairfax Media launched in January; 123,553 had Quickflix as of March 31, the ASX-listed former DVD-delivery service; and 40,000 had Foxtel Play, the streaming version of Foxtel’s pay TV service.
Roy Morgan’s general manager of media, Tim Martin, said Netflix’s dominance is clear: “Up to half of all subscribers to Stan, Quickflix or Presto are also subscribed to Netflix — perhaps bingeing for a month on free content across the options, preparing to make a decision about which, if any, earns their continuing monthly spend.”
He added: “But it also might not be an either-or proposition. As each has different content available, many Australian TV lovers may choose to subscribe to multiple SVOD providers, switching between Orange is the New Black on Netflix, Better Call Saul on Stan, the HBO back catalogue on Presto and a new release movie (or delayed Game of Thrones marathon) on Quickflix.”
The numbers, taken from the Roy Morgan Single Source Survey, covered a representative sample of 2,088 Australians aged 14 and over, in order to estimate the numbers based on the entire population of the country.
The figures also say that over 5 million Australians access Foxtel, the News Corp-managed pay TV service, with 300,000 people using both Foxtel and Netflix. Foxtel’s most recent official subscriber figures, as of March 31, are 2.8 million households.
