Analysis of the actual utilization of video content in 2023: More than half of Japan’s SVOD users share accounts, Nearly 40% of users are considering new or switching to an ad-supported plan.

Tokyo, December 8th, 2023 - GEM Partners has published a report called "Video on demand / Broadcast / Physical home video market user analysis report in Japan (Surveyed in November 2023)" an analysis report on the actual usage of video content.

From this report, we found that the growth rate of subscription video on Demand (SVOD) usage has been slowing down, having halved every year since 2020, when the market made rapid progress (see: "Growth in Japan's SVOD Market Finally Slows. Average number of its usage also unchanged from the previous year." https://gem- standard.com/columns/774 ). Against this backdrop, VOD service providers have begun to launch "crackdowns on account sharing" and "ad-supported plans" as their next steps to increase the number of users. In this release, we present an excerpt from the report on actual status and intentions of subscribers in response to these actions.

56.9% of users share their accounts with others, including family members
10.8% of all users share accounts with non-family members

A survey of SVOD users (regardless of whether they are subscribers or not) on the status of account sharing revealed that more than half (56.9%) share their accounts with others. The breakdown of sharing was as follows: 41.7% shared with family members only, 4.6% shared with both family members and non-family members, 6.2% shared with non-family members only, and 4.4% were unsure with whom they shared/are sharing their account.

Most of the services prohibit sharing accounts with third parties except for family members. In the chart above, "shared with both family members and non-family members" and "shared only with non-family members" fall under this category, accounting for 10.8% of the total. The report provides a more in-depth analysis of "account sharing status," enabling users to understand the sharing status by service, as well as a breakdown of sharing status by subscriber and non-subscriber.

25.3% would consider using ad-supported plans if they were introduced, and 11.1% intend to use them.

We asked those who are aware of each SVOD service whether they would be willing to use an ad-supported plan if one of the services they are aware of were to introduce one. The results showed that 11.1% of the respondents " would like to switch from their current plan or use a new plan," and 25.3% "would consider it depending on the contents," resulting in 36.4% of users expressing a positive attitude toward ad-supported plans.

On the other hand, 34.3% of the respondents answered negatively, saying they would not use the plan regardless of the content.

In the product report, we conducted further in-depth research on ad-supported plans. In addition to the above data on usage intention by service, the report also includes an analysis of "awareness" and "usage intention" of ad-supported plans by gender and age group, as well as "awareness" and "usage intention" analysis focused on Netflix, which actually offers ad-supported plans.

＊

As mentioned above, the "Video on demand / Broadcast / Physical home video market user analysis report in Japan (Surveyed in November 2023)" provides a wide variety of data, including analysis across contract types and media type, actual usage by category, brand penetration by individual service, and in-depth analysis of usage by video on demand service. We hope you will find it useful in understanding and analyzing the home entertainment market as a whole.

Report specification
Product name: Video on demand / Broadcast / Physical home video market user analysis report in Japan (Surveyed in November 2023)
Survey method : Internet survey
Survey target :Male/female of ages between 15 and 69 who are living in Japan
The number of respondents : 19,325
Published Date: December 08, 2023
Survey date : Saturday, November 4, 2023 - Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Language: English / Japanese