Study: Netflix Gained More Subscribers In The UK Last Year Than All Local Competitors Combined

Netflix’s global expansion looks to be shaping up rather nicely in the UK.

According to a study by research group Enders Anaylsis, Netflix gained 1.8 million new accounts in the UK last year to amass a total subscriber base of 5.2 million. This means that subscribers grew at a rate of about 37%. Netflix’s 1.8 million subscribers is more than the 1.3 million subscribers garnered by all of its competitors combined in 2015, including Sky, Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk.

But Netflix’s explosive growth in the UK — where it launched in 2012 — has not yet hurt linear TV providers, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which says that many SVOD subscribers overlap with pay-TV subscribers there.

Netflix has more than 75 million total users today — 45 million of which are in the US, and 30 million internationally.

Enders also took a look at the growth of services like Amazon Prime and YouTube in the UK. Prime, which counted 1.6 million total UK users last quarter “looks set to balloon” in 2016, according to Enders, as a result of British broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson (formerly of BBC’s Top Gear), who is set to headline a highly anticipated though as-yet-unnamed motoring show. Amazon Prime is also poised for growth, says Enders, given that Amazon accounts for 24% of all UK e-commerce.

And there are 35 million monthly unique YouTube users in the UK, according to Enders — though this figure skews strongly toward millennials. “Those 55 and older will take longer to move beyond catch-up TV to embrace a wider range of VOD options,” according to the firm.