TOPLINE
Disney+ lost over two million subscribers, while Netflix gained over 7 million and ESPN+ and Hulu have made slow but steady gains—here’s where the major streaming services stand with subscribers, as of December 31, 2022.
KEY FACTS
Netflix: 230.75 million subscribers, up 7.66 million from September.
Disney+: 161.8 million subscribers, down 2.4 million from September.
Hulu: 48 million subscribers, an increase of 800,000 from September.
ESPN+: 24.9 million subscribers, an increase of 600,000 from September.
Peacock: More than 20 million subscribers, up from over 15 million in September.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns HBO Max and Discovery+, has not yet reported its most-recent subscriber numbers. Viacom, which owns Paramount+, will announce its earnings and subscribers on February 16.
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW
AppleTV+ and Amazon Prime Video do not make it publicly known how many subscribers they have.
BIG NUMBER
38.1% That’s how much of total TV usage streaming represented in December, according to Neilsen. Of streaming usage, 8.7% was attributed to YouTube and YouTube TV, 7.5% was Netflix, 3.4% was Hulu, 2.7% was Prime Video, 1.9% was Disney+, 1.4% was HBO Max, 1% was Peacock and 0.8% was Pluto TV. The remaining 10.7% was other streaming platforms.
KEY BACKGROUND
Netflix could see its subscriber count increase this year as it rolls out measures to prevent sharing accounts outside of households. The company said 100 million households share passwords, and on Wednesday it launched initiatives in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain to combat the problem. Similar tactics will be used in the U.S. after the first quarter of this year. Major changes are also coming to Discovery+ and HBO Max. Last year, Warner Bros. Discovery said the two streaming platforms would be combined into one unified service, launching sometime this year. However, the Wall Street Journalreported Wednesday that Discovery+ will remain a standalone service, and the new service will feature both HBO content and most, but not all, of the content also found on Discovery+. Executives have changed course in an attempt to maintain the app’s roughly 20 million subscribers, who may not want to pay a higher fee for the new platform, sources said.
FURTHER READING
Netflix Password Crack Down Begins In Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain (Forbes)
Disney Will Reinstate Dividends, Cut 7,000 Jobs As Bob Iger Hones In On Bottom Line (Forbes)
By Marisa Dellatto, Forbes Staff