UK Households, Citing Inflation, Cancel Streaming Subscriptions; Disney+ Records Highest Churn

The economic crisis impacting the U.K. has resulted in a growing number of households canceling at least one streaming service, according to new data study released by the research firm Kantar.

What Happened: According to a Deadline analysis of the new data, 1.51 million streaming subscriptions in the U.K. were canceled during the first quarter of this year, an increase from 1.04 million in the previous quarter and from 1.2 million one year earlier.

Kantar’s study attributed more than half a million subscription cancellations to the need for saving money — inflation in the U.K. reached 6% during the first quarter and the International Monetary Fund forecasted that the nation faces the worst inflation shock among the world’s major economies over the next two years.

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How It Happened: Kantar’s report observed the increased popularity of streaming services during the COVID-19 pandemic has begun to fray in a post-pandemic environment, with the new study noting how U.K. households “are now proactively looking for ways to save, and the SVOD market is already seeing the effects of this.”

The new study estimated that U.K. homes that pay for SVOD entertainment have an average of 2.4 streaming subscriptions, with 16.9 million households or 58% of the population having at least one paid subscription.

Among the streaming services most impacted by this situation is the Walt Disney Co.’s DIS Disney+, which recorded a quarterly churn at 12%, whereas Netflix NFLX and Amazon’s AMZN have been the last to be jettisoned by cost-cutting households.

However, not all of the streaming news from the U.K. is bad: Apple Inc. AAPL saw a spike in Apple TV+ subscriptions, up 9.2% to its highest level to date.