Netflix faces heavy competition as it prepares to roll out across Europe as the number of on-demand services has already topped 3,000, according to a report from the European Audiovisual Observatory.
The report shows that as of February 2014, there were 3,088 on-demand services across Europe, although only 409 of these were true TVOD and SVOD services. Catch-up TV accounts for 1,104 services across the region, followed by branded channels of broadcasters on open platforms with 711 services.
The UK has the highest number of services with 682, followed by France with 434 and Germany with 330. The report highlights the cross-border nature of the on-demand business – around 60% of VOD services available in the EU member states are operating in at least one other country.
The report also found that 223 US-based services are currently available in at least one or more European territories. In the UK, Netflix and Amazon accounted for nearly 98% of the SVOD market by volume in 2012.
In addition to Netflix and Amazon, major players across the region include HBO Go, Japanese-owned Wuaki.tv and European-owned services such as Canal Plus’ CanalPlay Infinity, ProSiebenSat1’s Maxdome and Vivendi’s Watchever.
Other trends highlighted by the report include the rise of mobile devices to view video content and the rapid expansion of over-the-top (OTT) services. The report found that OTT video consumption grew by 97% last year compared to just under 27% for VOD services in general.
Advertising on ad-supported online video services was estimated to reach €661.9m in 2012, an increase of 50.6% on the previous year, which accounted for 12.9% of the total online display advertising market.