Comscore’s new Total Home Panel data shows that most of the five biggest U.S. subscription streaming video services saw increases in engagement in early May.
With many Americans still social distancing and staying home to help stop the spread of coronavirus, streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ have seen significant increases in usage. Over the last two months, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ saw growth in share of streaming hours through the week of May 11 versus February 3. The company said that even though Disney+ currently holds a smaller share of streaming hours among the big five, it is nearly two times larger than the next video-oriented OTT app offering in terms of streaming hours.
However, during the same time period, both YouTube and Hulu saw slight declines in viewership.
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Disney+ experienced some of the biggest spikes in viewership during the COVID-19 crisis. Comscore attributed some of that growth to the company providing early VOD access to new films like “Onward.”
According to Comscore's data, average in-home data consumption was up 33% during the first ten days of May 2020 compared to the first ten days of May 2019. The company also recorded 28% and 36% year-over-year increases in March and April 2020, respectively. Smart TVs (+60%), mobile phones (+47%), streaming boxes/sticks (+39%) and smart speakers (+35%) are driving the year-over-year growth trends.
In-home data usage has begun to slowly decline since April 20 as states started easing restrictions on social gatherings.