As Canadians Continue Cutting Cable Cords, Netflix is the New Black
Over 600,000 Canadians cancelled their landlines last year, according to data from the quarterly reports of telecommunications providers and Convergence Consulting Group.
More than 150,000 “cut the cord” in just the last quarter. This is despite telcos offering incentives for consumers to keep their landlines, because the network investments are a sunk cost.
Canadians are also ditching cable at aggressive rates. In 2015, nearly 200,000 Canadians ditched cable television. That’s a huge increase from 2014, when barely 100,000 cut the cord.
It’s not that Canadians have stopped using phones or watching TV, of course. Instead we’re relying on smartphones and streaming content on alternative platforms, such as Netflix.
In fact, Netflix is largely responsible for the death of cable TV in Canada. Half of Canadians have tried out an alternative video service recently, according to the J.D. Power 2016 Canadian Television Provider Customer TV/ISP Satisfaction Study. 67% used Netflix, while just 16% tried Shomi and only 9% streamed on CraveTV.
According to the study, the number of connected devices per household has risen to 9.9 from 4.5 in 2015.
Netflix’s Canadian library boasts nearly 4,000 titles and almost 20% of Canadians actively use the streaming service. During peak Internet usage hours, Netflix content can account for more than one-third of traffic in Canada.