Julia Stoll
Research expert covering TV and video media
Home video market in the United States - statistics & facts
The home video market is a profitable industry which involves a variety of different media, devices, and services for watching video content at home. Since 2014, consumer spending on home entertainment in the U.S. has been on the rise, growing from under 18 billion U.S. dollars per year to over 36 billion U.S. dollars as of 2022. The industry has changed drastically in the past decade, with the video rental sector continually slowing and being replaced by on-demand options. The collapse of Blockbuster, one of the premier physical video providers in the United States, signaled the beginning of a new era in the home video market as consumption of physical video media is expected to continue its decline in the years ahead.
Most profitable home video segments in the U.S.
Given this downturn, Americans are turning to other home video services. Often referred to as VOD, video-on-demand services allow customers to choose exactly what, whenever, and wherever they want to watch it. More than 80 percent of Americans use subscription video-on-demand services. Among subscription of streaming services, electronic sell-thru and digital rentals, video subscription streaming services are the most profitable type of digital home entertainment in the U.S. Between 2021 and 2022, the growth rate amounted to around 17 percent. Another promising home video segment includes ad-supported video-on-demand, with an expected revenue of nearly 75 billion U.S. dollars in 2027.Changes in consumer behavior
The change in consumption has given room for other services and players to grow. Some of the leading video subscription services in the U.S. include Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max, as well as Disney+, only to name a few. With people staying at home and theaters closed during the coronavirus pandemic home video entertainment became even more popular. Although SVOD services are certainly here to stay, they have recently struggled, especially in the saturated U.S. market. With the economic downturn and the inflation impacting monthly budgets of streaming customers, not only Netflix reported losses in subscribers, but also Disney+. As a result, companies are shifting to a more flexible monetization model, including both ad-free subscription-based and cheaper ad-supported content.
