Despite growing economic concerns and an uncertain future, Sweden holds more streaming subscriptions than ever, Mediavision has revealed. The independent analysis and consultancy firm has been observing how the market for TV and streaming in Sweden is being affected by households’ increasing concerns about the economy. The report published on 24 August shows that, during the past second quarter of the year, Swedish families are continuing to pay for their streaming subscriptions and that the market is growing in line with the general trend, resulting in a record quarter for the paid streaming market.

In detail, household penetration for paid streaming services – including the likes of Viaplay, Cmore and Netflix – amounted to 61%, which marks a significant increase of 5% compared to the same period in 2021, along with “a consistently stable growth rate”. Growth is also noted in terms of the number of subscriptions per household, also known as stacking. Currently, a subscribing household pays for 2.2 services, on average. This means that 600,000 new streaming subscriptions have been added since the same period last year. In light of these positive numbers, the Swedish paid streaming market is now approaching 6 million subscriptions.

“Mediavision has also compared how Swedish households acted in previous periods of economic turmoil. During the financial crisis of 2008-2009, households mainly paid for traditional pay TV, as the streaming market was still in its infancy. Even during this period, increasing interest in pay TV was noted. The number of paying households increased, as did the average household expenditure, though not by much,” the official press release highlights.

“Contrary to what many gloomy headlines have warned us about in recent times, Mediavision’s analysis shows that households value their streaming subscriptions highly. They don’t seem to be prepared to cut back on that expenditure at the moment. Nor do we see any signs of this when considering the households’ future purchase plans and possibly deteriorated finances. On the contrary, our figures show that households plan to acquire even more streaming services. Growth is expected to be driven primarily by existing streaming households that acquire more services. The situation could, of course, become worse, but as things stand right now, it is not primarily streaming services that are threatened by deteriorating household finances,” commented Marie Nilsson, CEO of Mediavision.