Netflix leads the streaming wars, followed by Foxtel’s Presto

THE results are in. The streaming wars are under way, but is it Netflix, Presto or Stan with the most subscribers?

IT’S official. Netflix is winning the streaming wars three months in.

New data today released by Roy Morgan Research has the American streaming giant leading in subscriber numbers, according to the first major survey conducted since Netflix’s launch in March.

Netflix’s viewership numbers are estimated at 1.039 million Australians, while its closest rival is Foxtel’s Presto, which now has about 97,000 viewers.

Nine and Fairfax’s Stan is in third place with 91,000 viewers, followed by the struggling Quickflix, which has just 43,000 that access its service.

The numbers supplied by Roy Morgan.

The survey was conducted with a representative sample of 2088 Australians over 14 years of age to estimate numbers.

Foxtel is still the leading paid television service in Australia, with Roy Morgan pointing out that more than five million people have access to Foxtel in their homes.

They also pointed out that nearly half of Stan, Quickflix and Presto subscribers are subscribed to Netflix, which could mean they are simply taking advantage of the free trials of one of the services.

However, Roy Morgan media general manager Tim Martin said, “it also might not be an either-or proposition. As each has different content available, many Australian TV lovers may choose to subscribe to multiple SVOD (streaming video on demand) providers, switching between Orange is the New Black on Netflix, Better Call Saul on Stan, the HBO back catalogue on Presto and a new release movie or delayed Game of Thrones marathon on Quickflix.”

“With each new month of incoming data collected from over 2000 Australian around the country, we’ll be better able to track and understand how SVOD is impacting the Australian media landscape,” Mr Martin said.

Another interesting note is that last month Stan announced it had 200,000 subscribers, including both paying and non-paying, which is more than double the estimated numbers from the Roy Morgan survey. Quicklix last quarter also reported to the ASX that it has 120,000 subscribers, three times the amount this survey suggests, so it might be worth taking the results with a grain of salt.

News Corp Australia, publisher of news.com.au partially owns Foxtel.