A new survey shows Amazon's Prime Instant Streaming is making headway into the lucrative subscription video-on-demand sector, and that the iPad is now the most popular device for consuming all types of streaming content
A new survey shows Amazon's Prime Instant Streaming service is growing in popularity, but that Netflix remains in a dominant position in the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) market.
SVOD service asks subscribers to pay a flat monthly fee and gives them unlimited access to thousands of TV shows and movies as long as they keep on paying the fees. The low cost of the service usually means available content is usually devoid of new release content.
The survey, conducted by research firm ChangeWave Research, showed that Amazon's SVOD service now holds 22% of the market, up from 17% in February.
At the same time, Netflix's market dominance shrank from 91% in February to 82% in September.
In addition to being able to access thousands of TV show and movies, Amazon Prime members also receive discounted shipping and other benefits when buying goods from Amazon.
While Amazon's emergence in the SVOD sector, fuelled by the release of its own consumption device, the Kindle Fire tablet, should not have Netflix worried too much just yet, the survey also showed that 18% of Netflix subscribers were also subscribers to Amazon Prime.
Hulu Plus also managed to increase its market share, from 6% to 8%, while 16% opted for Apple's transactional based VOD service, which features the latest releases, up 1 percentage point since February.
The survey also looked at the type of devices people used to consume streaming video content. For the first time, Apple's iPad became the most popular hardware platform for respondents that streamed video online.
All of the major streaming services now have apps that support Apple's tablet device, including Apple's own iTunes, which is normally exclusively available on Apple's own devices. 32% of streaming users used iPads, up 7 points since February.
Apple's iPhone also managed to become more popular, with 25% of those surveyed saying they used one to stream videos.
The previous king of consumption, connected Blu-ray players, dropped in popularity, from 33% to 31%.