Despite reporting a decrease of 600,000 U.S. and Canadian subscribers last quarter, Netflix usage actually saw an increase among U.S. households during Q1. Data compiled by Attest’s US Media Consumption Tracker revealed an upward swing of 2.8% percentage points in people who watched the streaming service at least once per week. That increase meant that 71.2% of working-age Americans watched the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) streamer on a weekly basis during the quarter. The improvement was the single largest increase in weekly viewership among all platforms.
Hulu and Peacock also showed growth in Q1 2022 at just over 1% each. Hulu was able to use its momentum to surpass Amazon Prime Video in terms of usage hours. The streaming service that Jeff Bezos built took the quarter’s largest dive with a 5.2% decrease in U.S. weekly viewers. SHOWTIME, HBO Max, and Disney+ all dropped between two and three percentage points from last year’s fourth quarter. Paramount Plus, Sling TV, and YouTube TV saw minor decreases in weekly viewership while Apple TV+ made no significant movement either way.
After a series of difficult news cycles, this data comes as good news for Netflix, especially after the SVOD giant reported a net loss of 200,000 global users in Q1 2022 and is expected to lose another 2 million next quarter. However, a recent Hub Entertainment Research study reported that Netflix is still an essential entertainment platform. Of over 3,000 U.S. consumers surveyed, 68% of them placed Netflix on their “must-have” list. The streaming service ranked third just below Spotify and YouTube, so it looks like it isn’t all gloom and doom for Netflix after all.
While there are still encouraging signs for the streaming giant, it isn’t completely out of the woods yet. Both Netflix’s Standard Plan ($15.49 per month) and Premium Plan ($19.99 per month) cost more than HBO Max, the next highest streaming service on the market today. And Netflix has admitted that its high prices are affecting its loss of users. That’s why the SVOD is working to launch a lower price-point version by the end of the year that will includes ads. But concerns are growing that Netflix might soon be bringing recent password-sharing crackdowns to more markets, essentially raising prices yet again.
A recent survey from Aluma Insights revealed that 13% of Netflix subscribers would cancel their service if they were to be charged $3 for sharing passwords. But 12% of those same Netflix users also said that they would likely pay to add an additional user under the streamer’s plan, and over half planned to do nothing at all. So it seems that the rumors of Netflix’s demise have been greatly exaggerated; at least for now.
Netflix
Netflix is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 3,000+ movies, 2,000+ TV Shows, and Netflix Originals like Stranger Things, Squid Game, The Crown, Tiger King, and Bridgerton. They are constantly adding new shows and movies. Some of their Academy Award-winning exclusives include Roma, Marriage Story, Mank, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.