Some 400,000 Australian households had signed up for Netflix within two months of its local launch, according to Roy Morgan Research.
Netflix launched in Australia on March 24, although some estimates say over 200,000 locals may have previously signed up for the service using geo-blocks to stream content from the United States and the United Kingdom.
In April, 766,000 Australians in 296,000 homes subscribed to Netflix. By May, this had grown to over a million in 408,000 households.
The $40-billion American giant has taken an early lead in the nascent market of on-demand subscription television in Australia, securing over 10 times more subscriptions than its local competitors.
By May, just 97,000 Australians were subscribed to Presto, 91,000 had Stan, 43,000 had Quickflix and 40,000 had Foxtel Play.
“But our early research also shows that the war’s far from over, especially when it comes to Foxtel,” said Tim Martin, general manager of media at Roy Morgan Research.
“Over five million Australians live in a household subscribed to Foxtel, whether directly or as bundled with other services through a telecommunications provider such as Telstra or Optus — and this currently includes around 300,000 Netflix subscribers,” said Martin.
The GM added that as each provider has different content available, many Australian TV viewers may choose to subscribe to multiple SVoD providers.