Recession Impact Cocooning Will Protect Entertainment Spend

The 20,000 Foot View:  Even before the global coronavirus outbreak, faltering confidence in the global economy suggested that a recession may be looming. With stock markets trending down following the upswing in coronavirus cases, the chances of a global recession are rising. Entertainment normally suffers in a recession, but MIDiA’s latest recession impact consumer data indicates that leisure spend may bear the brunt of any downturn in discretionary spend.

Key Insights

• Eating out            and going out less are            far the most widely-cited ways            which consumers would reduce spend
           of consumers would eat out less and            would go out less, while            of regular gig goers would go to fewer concerts
• Should coronavirus            a recession, safety concerns would            increase the skew towards cutting            spend rather than entertainment spend
           of consumers would downgrade from a music subscription to free, while the same share would cancel one or more video subscriptions 
• The prevalence            multiple video subscriptions            of video            have more than one video            means the overall subscriber base            reduce less than music
• Apple and            will be well placed to            subscriber market share in a            due to their bundling advantage

Companies and brands mentioned in this report:  Amazon, Amazon Prime Music, Apple, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Netflix, Spotify

This is the second report in MIDiA’s Recession Impact research series.