One of my favorite go-to topics last year was movie streamers, and not just because of the big numbers they put up, but more so because it's an ancient industry that (finally) figured out how to evolve away from set-top boxes and to mobile devices.
It may seem like an easy transition, but I've seen quite a few industries that faced such a transition and failed.
You may expect me to dive into big names like HBO Max and Disney+, the winners in this race, but I've done enough of that recently. Instead, the trend I'm alluding to here is everyone else. Apps like Peacock and Paramount+ have both been making some gains this year.
I rounded up 6 of those (full list at the end) and looked at how their revenue grew month-over-month this year.
Going back to 2020, pre-pandemic, and before the trend really started taking off, you can see growth didn't happen at all. Based on our estimates, US net revenue of all of the apps that were available at the time shrunk by 30% or roughly $10M. But that quickly changed.
By Q3 of 2020, more apps joined the race and either launched or started to seriously promote and monetize. According to our app intelligence, US net revenue grew by 43% in Q3 of 2020.
Then, in 2021 the growth continued pretty much at that rate but quarter over quarter.
You might be seeing a slump in Q4, but given how high these rates are to begin with, even that is a positive.
The battle will continue in 2022 and will get even more fierce -- more content, more promotions, and... more apps.
And with so much content, the name of the game will be competition, or rather, staying a step ahead of the competition.
FYI - The six include Prime Video, Paramount+, STARZ, Showtime, discovery+, Peacock TV.
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