How Much Consumers in Each Country Pay for Streaming

After nearly saturating the U.S. market, streaming services are rapidly expanding into other territories to continue their growth. New Morning Consult data offers insight into the streaming behaviors of consumers in 15 countries, shedding light on how they watch, how much they spend and how many services they pay to access.

Consumers in India, United States stream more than everyone else

• Regardless of country, consumers are most likely to subscribe to one to two streaming services, and more than half of Italian (55%), South Korean (55%) and Brazilian (53%) adults said they currently pay for one to two services.
• Japanese consumers are least likely to be streaming subscribers, as 54% said they subscribe to no streaming services at all. 
• Indian consumers are most likely to subscribe to streaming platforms, as just 9% said they have no streaming subscriptions. Americans were close behind, with just 15% of U.S. adults saying they don’t subscribe to any services. A majority of Indian (57%) and U.S. adults (53%) said they subscribe to three or more services, the only two groups to do so.  

Consumers worldwide aren’t willing to pay an arm and a leg for streaming

• The majority of consumers in most countries spend $30 or less on streaming services each month. In the United States, 46% of consumers said they spend $30 or less per month, while 38% said they spend more than that.
• Chinese consumers spend the least amount of money on streaming, as 55% said they spend less than $15 a month. In contrast, consumers in Australia and the United States spend the most. Seven percent of Australian adults and 8% of U.S. adults spend more than $61 a month on streaming. A majority of Japanese consumers said they didn’t know or had no opinion on how much they spend on streaming services.

India, China stand out as mobile-first streaming countries

• Watching streaming content via a traditional or smart TV is the most popular viewing option for almost all of the countries included in the survey. Roughly two-thirds of adults in the United Kingdom and United States said they primarily watch streaming content on TVs, a view shared by about 3 in 5 consumers in Australia, Germany and Spain. 
• In India and China, however, mobile devices are clearly the most popular option, as more than half of consumers in both countries said they mainly watch streaming content on their phones.
• At 22%, Russia had the largest share of consumers who said they watch on their computers. 

Streaming is growing, but it has a limit

The data suggests there is a limit to the number of streaming services consumers around the world will pay for. In the United States, where every major option is available, consumers don’t seem intent on signing up for more than three to four platforms. In India, however, more than a third of consumers (34%) said they subscribe to more than three to four services. They, along with Chinese consumers, also said they stream on their mobile devices more than their counterparts in other countries.

It’s no wonder several major streaming platforms, including Netflix and Disney+, are targeting India as an area for growth. In 2019, Netflix launched a mobile-only plan in India, and is expected to roll it out to more markets where it makes sense. Based on the survey, it might make sense in Mexico, where nearly a third (32%) of consumers said their mobile phones serve as their primary method of streaming content.

While strategies honed in the U.S. market may work in some other countries (the behaviors of British and Australian consumers, for instance, are similar to those in the United States, per Morning Consult data), streaming companies with global ambitions clearly cannot use a one-size fits all approach as they look to grow.  

Surveys conducted March 3-8, 2022, among a representative sample of 999-2,211 adults in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, with an unweighted margin of error of plus or minus 2-3 percentage points.