Snippets: Digital content revenue

Digital content revenue

A new study from Juniper Research has found that global consumer spend on digital content will reach $202 billion (bn) in 2018, up by 10 per cent on this year’s total of $184bn. The research found that SVoD (Subscription Video on Demand) services will be a key driver of growth, with major OTT (over the top) players such as Netflix and Amazon committing budgets of more than $5bn to original content over the coming year. Meanwhile, Apple and Facebook are each expected to invest at least $1bn for the first time.

There are indications that OTT players may be poised to disrupt the market for major sporting rights. Although Facebook failed in its recent bid for the worldwide IPL (Indian Premier League) cricket rights, the report claimed that either Amazon or Facebook would bid for, and probably win, at least one major live rights package in the forthcoming auction for England’s Premier League football games.

IT spending growth

IT spending in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) is projected to total $1 trillion in 2018, an increase of 4.9 per cent from estimated spending of $974 billion in 2017, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. In 2017, however, all categories of IT spending in EMEA underperformed global averages. 

Currency effects played a big part in the weakness in 2017, and will also contribute to the strength forecast in 2018. “Weak sterling and political uncertainty since Brexit are reducing UK IT spending in 2017, while other major IT markets in EMEA grew steadily,” John-David Lovelock, research vice-president at Gartner, said.

Another significant currency effect is the rapid appreciation of the euro against the US Dollar - it provides an incentive for Eurozone countries to defer IT spending to 2018 where possible, in anticipation of even lower prices in US dollars.