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- Disney announced on Wednesday that its streaming service, Disney Plus, had reached 50 million subscribers since launching in November.
- TV analytics company EDO surveyed 6,809 people in the US last month about their at-home viewing habits.
- A fifth of respondents said they have subscribed to a new streaming service since the coronavirus outbreak began.
- Disney Plus and Hulu were the streaming services that the highest number of respondents said they had subscribed to since the coronavirus outbreak began.
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This story was originally published on April 2 and has been updated to reflect Disney Plus' latest subscriber numbers.
As movie theaters shut down and people across the US adhere to national guidelines to stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic, at-home movie and TV watching has increased.
Disney announced on Wednesday that its streaming service, Disney Plus, had reached 50 million subscribers since launching in November. In February, the company said the service had gained 28.6 million subscribers. Disney Plus launched in regions throughout Europe last month and in India this month.
Disney Plus was boosted by these new audiences, but it's also benefited from people staying at home.
The TV analytics company EDO surveyed 6,809 people in the US from March 24 to March 28 about their viewing habits while social distancing (the survey was conducted through a third-party survey company with a national panel of moviegoers). The results, which were released on April 1, suggest that streaming-service consumption is on the rise.
85% of those who responded said that their at-home TV and movie watching has increased recently, with nearly half of respondents saying it had grown by 50%.
Disney Plus and Hulu were the streaming services most benefiting from this increase, according to the survey. A fifth of respondents said they have subscribed to a new service since the coronavirus outbreak began. 29% of those said that Disney Plus was that service, followed by Hulu, which is also operated by Disney, at 21%. Around 15% said they had subscribed to Netflix.
Disney Plus is a relatively new service, but less than 10% of those who said they had subscribed to a new service said it was Apple TV Plus, which also launched in November.
Disney announced in February that Hulu had 30.7 million subscribers. Netflix is the leading streamer with 167 million subscribers worldwide as of its latest earnings report in January, with 61 million of those in the US. Its growth last quarter in the US came in below projections, while it exceeded expectations internationally.
In another survey, released on April 2, Kagan, the media research unit within S&P Global Market Intelligence, polled 1,000 participants from March 27 to March 29 and found Hulu was the most enticing streaming service for those looking to add. Two in 10 of the survey takers said they were likely to add a new service through June, with Hulu leading (6%), followed by Netflix (5%), Disney Plus (4%), and Amazon Prime Video (3%).
Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.
