Disney+ was the standout growth story in the UK SVOD market in the second quarter of 2026, adding more than 1.1 million homes following its inclusion in several Sky packages.
Barb’s latest Establishment Survey shows Disney+ was available in 8.9 million UK homes at the end of Q2, equivalent to 29.9% of households. This compares with 7.8 million homes in the previous quarter.
The service’s ad-supported tier accounted for much of the growth, rising by 700,000 homes to 3.6 million. Some 40% of Disney+ homes now use the advertising tier, up from 37% in Q1.
Doug Whelpdale, Head of Insight at Barb, said the increase appeared to be directly linked to the partnership announced in March, which added Disney+ with ads to eligible Sky packages at no additional cost.
“By far the biggest change this quarter came from Disney+, which added more than 1.1m homes – including just over 700k ad tier homes – compared to Q1 2026,” Whelpdale said.
The overall SVOD market was broadly stable. Barb said 20.7 million UK homes, or 69.7% of households, had access to at least one subscription video-on-demand service in Q2, fractionally lower than the 20.8 million recorded in Q1.
Netflix remained the largest service, reaching 18 million homes, though this was marginally down quarter-on-quarter. Its ad tier grew to 7.3 million homes and now represents 41% of its UK household base.
Amazon Prime Video also slipped slightly to 13.6 million homes. Its ad tier reached 12.1 million homes, representing 89% of Prime Video households.
Paramount+ added 500,000 homes during the quarter to reach 4 million, while Discovery+ grew from 3.5 million to 3.7 million. Apple TV declined to 2.8 million homes, and NOW remained flat at 2 million.
