Global: Consumers cancelling subscriptions almost twice as fast as they are taking on new ones

The pandemic accelerated the rise of subscription services like Netflix but as inflation skyrockets, are consumers still willing to pay for these services?

According to a new YouGov survey conducted across 18 international markets, as of May 2022, nearly four in five consumers globally had not bought any new subscriptions or memberships in the month before they were asked. Britons were the least likely to have made any new subscription commitments (91%), closely followed by other European nations including France (87%), Denmark (86%), Italy (85%), Spain (84%), Germany (84%), and Sweden (82%). By comparison, about one-third of consumers from India (32%), UAE (31%) and Indonesia (36%) have bought at least one new subscription.

When asked if consumers had cancelled any subscriptions, nearly three in 10 consumers globally confirmed having done so. Drilling down into the market-level data, we see substantial numbers from Mexico (45%), China (41%), UAE (42%), Indonesia (36%), India (35%), Canada (33%), Britain (29%), and the US (29% cancelling a minimum of one subscription in the month before they were asked). Streaming giant Netflix announced in April that they had lost 200,000 subscribers in Q1 2022.

Rising losses in subscribers could be associated with rising inflation around the world. European Union's statistics agency Eurostat reported that inflation has hit a record high of 8.1% in 19 countries using the Euro. According to the World Economic Forum, prices of food, oil and energy are steadily increasing. In related data, more than a third of global consumers (35%) told YouGov that media streaming services was one of the items they would cut back on as they felt the pinch of inflation.

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Methodology: The data is based on the interviews of adults aged 18 and over in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 508 and 2065 for each market. All interviews were conducted online in May 2022. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples.