With most of the top streaming services raising rates, shifting from a focus on customer acquisition to profitability, we wonder how they sit with customers?
On Disney’s Q3 earnings call, August 9th, Disney became the latest, with CEO Bob Iger saying the company is “actively exploring ways to address account sharing” and announcing significant price hikes for Disney+ (+27% for the ad-free tier) and Hulu (+20% for the ad-free tier) starting October 12th.
HundredX looks to “The Crowd” of streaming viewers to understand the state of video streaming and see how Disney’s pricing moves may impact demand for the service. Our proprietary pricing power model indicates that while Hulu appears to have room to raise prices, customers probably won’t be as forgiving with Disney+’s price hike. Our model indicates Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Apple TV+ have the most room to raise prices without significantly hurting demand.
Examining 350,000 pieces of customer feedback on home entertainment industries, including more than 100,000 across 22 video streaming platforms, we find:
Usage Intent for video streaming, music streaming, and social media & search has dipped slightly (-1%) over the past three months. It’s remained stable for video games, and rose (1%) for news media.
Out of the biggest video streaming services, Netflix fell the most in Usage Intent over the past three months (-5%). Disney+ also fell (-2%) more than the industry average. Only Amazon Prime Video gained in Usage Intent (+1%).
Since Netflix began charging users extra for “password sharing” in late May, viewers have increasingly disliked its pricing. Net favorability toward Price dropped 5% since May, far more than any of Netflix’s biggest competitors.
Netflix also dipped significantly in net favorability in Value (-3%) over the past three months, putting it lower than any of its peers for the first time. While Disney+’s Value favorability remained stable during that time, it has fallen the most (-7%) out of its competitors compared to a year ago. Amazon Prime Video is gaining on Disney+.
But, price isn’t everything. Since March, variety has become more important than price to video streaming viewers. In July, Amount of Programming overtook Original Content as the 4th most selected reason viewers like or dislike a streaming service. The moves imply viewers want a variety of content, and more of it, on their video streaming platforms.
Net favorability toward Amount of Programming jumped (+5%) for Max and Paramount+ over the past three months. Recently, HBO Max and Discovery+ merged to form Max, while Paramount+ integrated Showtime into its platform. Apple TV+, following several major releases and the launch of its MLS season pass, jumped 12%.
Similarly, net favorability toward Variety increased, though less significantly, for Max (+2%) and Paramount+ (+1%) over the past three months. It grew the most for Apple TV+ (+7%), while it decreased (-2%) for Disney+ as the streaming service removed dozens of shows and movies from its platform.
Please contact our team for a deeper look at HundredX's video streaming data, which includes more than 220,000 pieces of customer feedback across 22 streaming services.
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