Netflix has hit a new milestone: More U.S. television households now have the streaming service than a digital video recorder, according to a recent study.
About 54% of U.S. adults said they have Netflix in their household — while 53% have a DVR, according to Leichtman Research Group’s annual on-demand study. It’s the first time that households with Netflix (including those that use shared accounts) have surpassed the level of those with a DVR in the history of LRG’s studies. In 2011, according to the research firm, 44% of TV households had a DVR and 28% had Netflix.
Netflix has now eclipsed DVR usage despite the latter having a years-long head start. TiVo’s first digital video recorder shipped in 1999, while Netflix debuted its video-streaming service in 2007 and started the shift away from its DVD-by-mail business. As of the end of 2016, Netflix had 49.4 million streaming subscribers in the U.S., up 10.5% year over year. LRG president Bruce Leichtman noted that Netflix’s penetration is boosted by password sharing, with previous surveys indicating nearly 20% of Netflix customers share account access with those outside their household.
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About 23% of all adults in TV homes stream Netflix daily, according to LRG’s survey of 1,211 consumers 18 and older conducted in January 2017, compared with 6% who did in 2011. Overall, 64% of respondents said they get a subscription video-on-demand service from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and/or Hulu.
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Meanwhile, Netflix’s stock was upgraded Monday by UBS analyst Doug Mitchelson, from “neutral” to “buy,” citing subscriber momentum in Europe and Latin America as well as remarks by Comcast CEO Brian Roberts who said last week at an investor conference that in a little more than 90 days since integrating Netflix into its X1 platform, more than 30% of X1 customers are using Netflix.
Comcast’s early results with Netflix on X1 are “encouraging,” Mitchelson wrote. “We expect ongoing churn reductions as Netflix adds more U.S. pay TV integration deals and as X1 penetrations rise.” Comcast has said about half its 22.5 million video subs have X1.
All that said, traditional linear TV is not dead in the water by any means. As Leichtman pointed out, 46% of adults say they often flip through channels to see what’s on TV.
Clarification: This article has been updated to note that Leichtman Research Group’s study included households that use shared Netflix accounts. According to LRG, previous surveys indicate that nearly 20% of Netflix customers share passwords with those outside their household.