A new study from Juniper Research has found that global consumer spend on digital content will reach $250 billion in 2019, an increase of $23 billion year-on-year.

The research found that SVoD (Subscription Video on Demand) services will be a key driver of growth as major players, including Amazon, Facebook and Twitter, acquired sporting rights in the last few years. The worldwide reach and significant subscriber numbers of these players position them as effective partners for sporting tournament and leagues aiming to increase viewership.

Juniper found that the average price of an mPOS device will drop from $40 in 2018 to approximately $33 by 2023. This affordability, coupled with the simplicity of mPOS devices, will make them highly attractive to smaller, previously cash-driven businesses.forecasts that in 2019, video will have the highest year-on-year growth in digital content revenues; reaching an estimated $94 billion, and accounting for 45% of global annual revenue growth.  Other sectors leading growth in net incremental revenue in 2019 will be: games, 36%; lifestyle, 8%; ePublishing, 5%.

Juniper found that growth in video will be driven by continued content spend by OTT players such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple, whose budgets were $8 billion, $5 billion and $1 billion respectively in 2018. Meanwhile, games will generate the highest digital content revenues of all categories to reach $99 billion in 2019. 

“Games revenues will be 40% of total content revenues in 2019, unchanged from 2018, as popularity of watching eSports online and attending tournaments remains strong worldwide,” says research author Elson Sutanto.