SVOD will be the key revenue driver for OTT and video in the MENA region by 2024.
The MENA region’s subscription VOD (SVOD) revenues will increase from US$1.51bn in 2018 to $2.13bn by 2024, according to the latest OTT TV and Video forecasts for the MENA region by Digital TV Research.
Turkey is poised to maintain its top spot as the region’s revenue generator with revenues estimated to triple to $556m by 2024.
Significant growth in Saudi Arabias streaming market will result in a quadrupling of revenues to $402m in 2024, placing the Kingdom in second place. Israel will follow, accumulating SVOD revenues of $398m, the analyst said.
Speaking about the latest findings, Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research
said: We forecast 26.51m SVOD subscriptions [an SVOD subscriber can have more than one subscription] by 2024, up from 11.31m recorded by the end of 2018. Turkey will remain the leader with 11.52 million subscribers by 2024.
In 2024, the top eight platforms among the 13 Arab countries are projected to be Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Icflix, Starz Play, iflix, OSNs Wavo, beIN Connect and MBCs Shahid Plus. Between them, they will retain 95% of the region’s SVOD subscribers.
By 2024, Netflix will emerge as the largest SVOD platform across MENA, with 7.71m paying subscribers versus 3.11m subscribers in 2018. Among the 13 Arab countries analysed, Netflix is estimated to have 4.22m subscribers.
Coming a close second, Starz Play is expected to acquire 2.98m subscribers by 2024. As the second most popular premium video streaming platform in the Arab world, it is expected to have 2.98m subscribers by 2024, up from 1.09m in 2018. Shahid Plus will occupy third place with 1.81m paying subscribers by 2024, which is six times its base in 2018.
