The Stockholm-based analyst says that characteristically, the Nordic countries are all quickly adapting to the new digital media market and that the TV sector is no exception. It calculates that even though five million households in the region now subscribe to at least one SVOD service interest in paid streaming services is still high and the market is far from saturated.

Within a year, it adds, half of all Nordic households are expected to have at least one paid streaming service. This would mean that another 700,000 net subscribers will have been added in the twelve months form Q1 2017. Furthermore, it believes that the appetite for premium online video only seem to increase further and that growth will continue also towards 2019.

As in the case in many other territories, Netflix is the dominant player in the regional SVOD market with close to 3.5 million subscribing households. Yet despite this, Mediavision calculated that Netflix’s market share has been pushed down from almost 50% in spring 2016 to its current 40%. Local SVOD services such as MTG's Viaplay and C More, are gaining share at the SVOD leader’s expense. Attributing reasons for this move to local suppliers, Mediavision cited the fact that households now sign up for several SVOD services as a key driver.

The analyst also sees signs of an increased local interest in advertising funded services (AVOD). “Our take on this is that the big investments made by Nordic services, in content and technology, have paid off,” commented Mediavision CEO Marie Nilsson. “But we are also foreseeing that competition will ramp up even further, as several “new” global media players are entering the Nordics. For all SVOD services, local and global, this means a tough fight over customers and market shares. For the consumers, freedom of choice will be even greater.”