Disney Plus Grabs Significant Share in the Streaming Market Less Than a Year After Launch

Disney+ has been a hot topic since it launched last November, and it looks like all that buzz isn’t for naught. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a new study by Nielsen revealed the streaming service has garnered four percent of market share only eight months after its launch.

While the number is much smaller than Netflix, which came out with largest share at 34 percent, YouTube was second at 20 percent and Hulu was third at 11 percent, Disney+ trailed fourth place contender Amazon Prime Video, which holds eight percent of the market share, by a very small margin.

The study also found that streaming made up 25 percent of total TV usage during the second quarter of the year. The figure was up from 19 percent in Q4 2019, most likely due to the fact that people were mandated to stay at home during much of Q2. Nielsen also reported that U.S households watched an average of 142.5 billion weekly streaming minutes in Q2, a staggering uptick from the 81.7 million hours in the second quarter of 2019, MediaPost reported.

While streaming is purported to be mostly geared toward young people, the study also showed that people across all demographics are open to it. The 55 and older demographic, in particular, saw a climb now accounting for 26 percent of streaming TV minutes viewed, up from 19 percent a year ago.

In their Q3 earnings report, Disney revealed that Disney+ reached 60.5 million subscribers as of August 3, having reached 57.5 million subscribers at the end of the third quarter in June 2020. That was up six million subscribers from the 54.5 million the company reported on May 4 in their Q2 2020 earnings call.