Netflix and Amazon Video could be battling it out over the next few years for subscription video-on-demand subscribers in Western Europe, but Netflix is likely to keep its crown, according to new research. Digital TV Research is predicting that Netflix will remain the dominant force in Western European SVOD for the next five years, but Amazon Video will offer some challenges. The research firm estimates that 15 Western European countries will offer Amazon Prime Video by the end of 2017.

Digital TV Research forecasts that Netflix’s share of Western European SVOD subs will fall from 51 percent in 2015 to 47 percent by 2021, and Amazon’s share will grow from 14 percent in 2015 to 21 percent by 2021.

 

“The Western Europe SVOD Forecasts” report foresees 55.17 million paying SVOD subscribers across 17 countries by 2021, up from 24.17 million in 2015 and an expected 32.87 million by the end of this year. More than 8 million subscribers will be added in 2016 alone, Digital TV Research notes.

“The United Kingdom will remain market leader, but Germany will close the gap. The United Kingdom accounted for a third of SVOD subscribers in 2015, but this proportion will fall to a quarter by 2021,” Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, says. “SVOD growth will be more modest in France, Italy, and Spain. In fact, the Netherlands and Sweden will have more SVOD subs than Spain in 2021, despite having much smaller populations.”

Around 31.5 percent of the region’s TV households will subscribe to a SVOD platform by 2021, the report predicts. That’s up from 14.1 percent recorded at the end of 2015.