Netflix for a long time was the reigning champion of streaming services, but a number of new services have emerged in recent years to challenge its dominance among subscribers. While some streaming services have already fallen by the wayside (RIP FilmStruck and Quibi), other services have quickly racked up millions of subscribers thanks to them offering exclusive blockbuster movies, some of the most beloved TV series of all time and a barrage of sequels and reboots.
Analysts see 100 million subscribers for Apple’s streaming service within 3 to 5 years
Hulu is owned by Disney, though has a much smaller number of subscribers than its main streamer Disney+ due to the fact that it is only available in the U.S. Four million of those subscribers are for its cable alternative Hulu with Live TV, which makes it the most popular online live TV service in front of YouTube, Sling and Fubo.
Launched in May 2020, HBO Max and HBO combined now have over 40 million subscribers per their owner WarnerMedia. Like Disney+, it benefited from its archive, with the service bringing together HBO's library of acclaimed shows with the Warner Bros movie archive. Numbers were also boosted during the pandemic when the service became the only place to watch movies like Wonder Woman 1984, Zack Snyder's Justice League and Godzilla vs. Kong.
It is true that 200 million people are subscribed to Amazon Prime, and by extension are also subscribed to the free add-on to that service, Amazon Prime Video. The streamer, however, has never revealed exactly how many of those users actually use their streaming perks. In 2018, around the time that Amazon Prime hit 100 million subscribers in the U.S., Reuters reported that 26 million users were using the video service. If that percentage has been maintained, Amazon Prime Video has around 52 million regular users.
Netflix remains the world's largest streaming service, hitting 200 million subscribers at the end of 2020. Though it remains the most popular of the streamers, the service has been the victim of a slowdown in recent months.
This, of course, happened after the company said it expects to add just 2.5 million subscribers worldwide in the first quarter in of 2022. During the fourth quarter, Netflix grew by 8.28 million subscribers, slightly shy of the 8.4 million analysts had expected.
In total, Netflix added 18 million subscribers in 2021, less than half of the 37 million it brought in during the year before. During the past five years, Netflix has added an average of around 27 million subscribers annually.
In the past two years, media companies have launched direct-to-consumer video services to compete with Netflix NFLX . All of them have been following category leader Netflix with global expansion and investing billions of dollars in content. As a result, the demand for streaming video remains strong.
Netflix: Despite a sluggish second quarter, Netflix remains the category leader in the streaming wars. In the second quarter 2021, Netflix added 1.5 million net new subscribers globally (compared to ten million in second quarter 2020). In the U.S./Canada market, subscriber counts had fallen by 430,000 totaling 73 million subscribers.
ViacomCBS: In second quarter 2021 ViacomCBS announced the addition of 6.5 net new streaming subscribers, giving them a total of 42 million globally. Although most of the increase came from Paramount+, subscriber counts also include Showtime, Noggin and BET+. ViacomCBS also said the ad supported streamer PlutoTV now has 52 million active global users, up from 50 million in the first quarter. On the strength of Paramount+, ViacomCBS has set a goal of 65 million to 75 million global streaming subscribers by 2024. Paramount+ is available in Scandinavia, Latin America and most recently Australia. The SkyShowtime agreement will make Paramount+ available in 22 western Europe markets and replace their presence in Scandinavia. PlutoTV is already available in a number of western European markets.
Discovery: Discovery+ was launched last January 4. In its first seven months they have totaled 18 million subscribers, up from 15 million at the end of April. (The subscriber counts also include other streaming providers in the Discovery Communications DISCA portfolio including Eurosport Player and GolfTV, but a large majority comes from Discovery+). On July 15, The Magnolia Network from Chip and Joanna Gaines was launched on Discovery+.
Others: There are numerous smaller streaming providers available to consumers: Starz, owned by Lionsgate, has 16.7 million global streaming subscribers with 28.9 million total subscribers. While linear TV subscriptions have fallen for Starz, streaming video, year-over-year, increased by 58% globally. AMC Networks AMCX includes such niche streaming providers as AMC+, Acorn TV, Allblk, and Shudder. AMC+, recently launched in Canada, has a stated goal of 20 million streaming subscribers by 2025. Previously, AMC announced an increase of 157% in streaming subscribers in 2020. The Fox owned Tubi, an ad supported streaming service, has 33 million monthly active users primarily in the U.S. with plans to expand globally.
With 230 million subscribers from around the world, Netflix has grown tremendously over the years. It is one of the leading internet entertainment services in the world with paid memberships in over 190 countries.
The demographics of Apple users using its music streaming platform show a steady increase since the service was created in 2015. The service, which used to be iTunes, has seen a boom in the last two years. The number increased by roughly 10 million users yearly from 2015 to 2019, then saw a jump to 20 million added users in 2020, and nearly 30 million added in 2021.
Paramount+Paramount topped 56 million paid global subscribers combined between its streaming platforms, (primarily) Paramount+ and Showtime OTT, at the end of 2021, when the company was still called ViacomCBS.
Spotify is a freemium digital audio streaming service. It was developed by Swedish entrepreneurs Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon in 2006. It was then launched in Europe two years later. Today, Spotify is available in 184 countries as of the time of writing (February 2022). It has over 406 million active users a month, 180 million of which are paying subscribers.
Netflix also lost 800,000 subscribers in 2011 after it unveiled plans to begin charging separately for its then-nascent streaming service, which had been bundled for free with its traditional DVD-by-mail service. The customer backlash to that move elicited an apology from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings for botching the execution of the spin-off.
But the latest subscriber loss was far worse than a forecast by Netflix management for a conservative gain of 2.5 million subscribers. The news deepens troubles that have been mounting for the streaming since a surge of signups from a captive audience during the pandemic began to slow.
The streaming industry "is more saturated and filled with a multitude of services offering compelling content at prices lower than NFLX's, including mega-tech platforms with deep pockets," Oppenheimer analysts wrote in a note.
A 2021 survey revealed the top reason users paid for a music streaming service was to stop advertisements interrupting the music stream. Other top reasons: listening to what they want when they want it, having access to millions of songs and having access to their own playlists.28
Lastly, Amazon Music is digital music streaming service that comes from a corporation that has dipped its toes in just about every industry. Amazon Music is slowly gaining subscribers, as the company boasts 55 million worldwide monthly users in 2020.
Although it may be relatively unknown to many music lovers in the world, Deezer is a French streaming platform that is very popular in some circles. The company has the rights to a growing library of over 73 million songs, which is accessed by the platforms 16 million monthly users (half of which are paid subscribers).
Apple Music was launched in 2015 and is a music streaming service that offers access to over 70 million songs. Its fantastic features include the option to download favorite tracks and play them offline, real-time lyrics, listening across all of your favorite devices, new music customized specifically for its users, curated playlists from their editors, and many more. All of this is in addition to exclusive and unique material.
In March 2018, Apple acquired Texture, a digital magazine service by Next Issue Media LLC. The deal was done for $485 million, and it provided subscribers with unrestricted access to their favorite titles with a single monthly subscription fee.
The streaming market has grown a lot in recent years, with newer services like Paramount Plus, Peacock, Discovery Plus, and HBO Max launching to compete with industry juggernauts like Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, and Disney Plus.
Disney Plus is the fastest growing streaming service on the market, having amassed more than 150 million subscribers since its launch in November 2019. The platform is the sole subscription streaming home of Disney's classic animated films, as well as franchises like "Star Wars" and "The Simpsons."
Peacock is the streaming home of NBCUniversal shows like "30 Rock," "Cheers," and "The Office," as well as some new original titles. The service also offers a rotating slate of hit movies. Though few of the catalog choices are less than 10-years old, Peacock has dozens of memorable films.
Starz - Like Showtime and HBO, Starz offers on-demand streaming of its original shows and a rotating catalog of movies. Notably, Starz is home to series like "Outlander." The service costs $9 a month, though new subscribers can get their first three months for $3 a month.
In 2020, more than two-thirds (68%) of US households maintained their cable TV subscriptions, the same share as in 2019. But these same consumers also spent time with streaming video, watching subscriber supported video-on-demand (SVOD) almost twice as often as ad-supported (AVOD) content (62% versus 32%). In 2019, survey respondents used, on average, slightly more than 6 streaming services, a total that grew to almost 8 in 2020. Pay TV subscribers aged 35-49 showed the strongest inclination to use additional services. 2ff7e9595c
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