In its Consumer Research - Devices, Media & Usage Intelligence Service – Premium report the analyst calculated that Netflix’s US penetration among the key demographic had plunged by almost a tenth between November 2018 and April 2019.

Attributing reasons for the initial dip, IHS Markit | Technology noted that US consumers are increasingly prone to add or drop video services and that this trend was even more apparent in the Latino community. According to the survey conducted in November 2019, a fifth of US households cancelled a video service over a 12-month period and did not return and concurrently, nearly 30% of over-the-top (OTT) subscribers signed up to at least one new OTT service during the same period. Consumers also cancelled and re-subscribed to video services to watch new seasons of content. Latinos were found to be twice as likely to cancel and re-subscribe to a video service as other consumers and 50% are more likely to use a free trial only than the average consumer.

Yet the research indicated that Netflix has now managed to reverse some of the declines during the following six months, with the penetration rising by 4% mainly at the expense of competitor Amazon Prime Video. A fifth of the Latino survey respondents subscribing to Netflix in the past year cited local content as the reason for subscribing to Netflix.

IHS Markit | Technology said that the movement to Netflix and away from Amazon is in line with the two services’ investment in Spanish language content.
Netflix’s investment in Spanish content has increased considerably in the past years as the global video service seeks to increase its subscriber base globally following a plateau in its US subscriptions. Nearly 14% of Netflix’s catalogue was in the Spanish language in September 2019, with the number of hours increasing by 12% when compared with the end of year of the 2018. Netflix’s foreign language originals have seen success globally, such as the TV series La Casa de Papel (Money Heist ).

“The movement of Latino audiences from Amazon to Netflix reflects the two services’ level of investment in Spanish-language content,” explained Fateha Begum, principal research analyst at IHS Markit | Technology regarding the findings of Consumer Research - Devices, Media & Usage Intelligence Service – Premium. “Although Amazon leads in overall video content, with a total of 3.4 million hours of programming, Netflix offers 15 times more hours of Spanish-language content than Amazon Prime Video. In terms of total hours of Spanish programming, Netflix is the clear leader in the US video streaming market, followed by Hulu.”