¿Cómo se dice “major streaming service”?
Have you heard of Vix, the Spanish-language streamer owned by TelevisaUnivision? You’re about to hear a lot more about it.
ViX is expected to be the fastest-growing subscription streaming service in the Americas in 2025, according to Ampere Analysis forecasts. Ampere, a media analyst firm based in London, believes ViX will grow its subscriber base by 18 percent this year, reaching 10.5 million paying customers in the Americas (the U.S., Central and South America — no Canada).
The growth rate should surpass “any other major subscription entertainment streaming platform in the region,” Ampere said; Ampere considers any streamer with more than 2 million subscribers to be “major.”
The bet isn’t exactly a long shot. ViX already pulled this off before — last year, as a matter of fact — and based on the below three-year growth chart, it’ll do it again next year too.
See the below chart featuring eight of the nine major streamers with the most subscriber growth (Prime Video ranks ninth, but was included due to its ubiquity in the region); ViX has grown its subscriber base by 70 percent over the past three years.
How is this happening? Well, there are a few factors at play. For starters, ViX is relatively young: it only launched in 2022. And when you start at a low number, growth when viewed on a percentage basis appears inflated.
But ViX has also earned much of this momentum. ViX has doubled its SVOD library size since launching; it’s added more than 2,500 titles in those three years. The Crime and thriller genre comprises most of its catalogue; romance (telenovelas, basically) makes up 18 percent of its content. The Ampere analysts find ViX’s “freemium” business model (a free tier, an ad-supported tier and an ad-free one) a major piece to its rapid expansion.
ViX has also aggressively pursued partnerships and bundling opportunities both in the U.S. — a recent deal with Charter Communications in the U.S. will add 900,000 new ad-supported subscribers from 2024 to 2026 — and in Mexico, where it partners with OXXO, Mercado Libre and a little streamer called Disney+.
“ViX has maximized viewer demand for Spanish-language content. Its unique hybrid business model offers a variety of subscription tiers and a vast catalogue, appealing to all audience types,” Ampere analyst Natalie Cruz said. “Its stronghold in the Americas and deep understanding of Spanish-speaking audiences have allowed it to effectively monetize through advertising, which now drives the majority of its revenue. With these advantages, ViX is well-positioned to continue outpacing competitors in both subscriber growth and revenue expansion, particularly through advertising.”
Cruz and her colleagues see 60 percent of ViX’s revenue coming from advertising this year. That’s huge since streaming advertising in Latin America is projected to double over the next five years.
“As most streamers shift focus from chasing subscriber growth to achieving profitability, ViX entered the market with a clear strategy, offering tiered options from the outset,” Ampere analyst Deborah Polanco wrote. “While competitors are catching up with ad tiers and implementing password-sharing crackdowns, ViX has already become the third global streamer to reach profitability, and in record time.”
