Video streaming subscribers now outnumber cable customers: report

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and other video streaming service subscribers now outnumber their cable subscribing counterparts.

According to a report by the Motion Picture Association of America, online video subscriptions surpassed the number of cable customers in 2018.

The MPAA’s report says there were 613.3 million online video service subscriptions as of last year, a 27 percent increase from 2017. Those 131.2 million new customers helped video streaming services exceed cable’s 556 million subscribers for the very first time.

Also assisting video subscription services in surpassing cable: cord cutters. Cable’s overall customer base fell 2 percent in 2018, according to the MPAA report.

Earlier this year, Netflix announced that it had added 29 million new paid subscriptions in 2018. The company alone accounts for more than 139 million subscribers. Around the same time, Hulu boasted having 25 million subscribers across its paid streaming plans. With companies like Disney and Apple set to launch its own streaming video services, that 613 million number is only going to grow.

One area where cable is still far ahead of video streaming, however, is revenue. Even despite the decrease in subscriptions thanks to cord cutting, cable still saw a revenue increase of $6.2 billion from the year before. According to the MPAA, Cable subscriptions brought in a total of $118 billion in revenue in 2018. Subscriptions to online streaming service accounted for just under $40 billion in revenue last year.