One-in-six adult US SVOD buyers regularly engage in app hopping
Details
Joseph O'Halloran
| 24 August 2023
Barely just over five years old, the practice of hopping between subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) apps – that is signing up for a service for a limited time, usually less than three months and then cancelling once a specific end is met – is taking off says research from Aluma Insights.
Aluma app hopping 23 Aug 2023
The analyst found that as many as one-sixth of adults that subscribe to services regularly now perform this activity typically subscribing just to watch a movie, live sports match, or a season of shows then cancelling and that the prevalence of steadfast app hoppers has increased 143% since 2017.

To determine the extent of app-hopping behaviours, Aluma assessed the regularity with which adults engaged in nine actions, the most common signing up for free trials or promotional pricing and cancelling before being charged full price, the least common signing up to watch a single live sports match then cancelling. Based on these insights, Aluma analysts segmented adult SVOD buyers into four exclusive groups: non hoppers, occasional hoppers, moderate hoppers, and heavy hoppers.

One example of app hopping was Binge & Bolt behaviour—that is, regularly signing up for an SVOD service with the intention of watching all the interesting content as quickly as possible then cancelling. One-in-seven (14%) adult SVOD buyers were found to have engaged in this behaviour at least fairly often, 5% very often. Of these adults, 90% typically cancel within the first three months of use, only 10% hanging on longer.

On average, Moderate and Heavy Hoppers Binged & Bolted 2.0 services in the last 12 months, compared with 1.4 among Occasional Hoppers.

“In 2017, only 7% of U.S. adult SVOD users qualified as steadfast app hoppers,” said Michael Greeson, founder and principal analyst at Aluma commenting on the research.

“That rate has more than doubled in the last six years and is certain to increase given the current milieu.” With large SVOD providers at or nearing domestic saturation; investors pressuring companies to balance their books; actors and writers on strike; and retail fees increasing at rates above inflation, Greeson added that app hopping behaviours can only become more common.