In brief: There's been a backlash against streaming apps in recent years as the likes of Netflix and Disney+ raise prices and clamp down on password sharing. However, a new report shows that the negativity isn't impacting the apps' popularity or income: more than half of every dollar spent in the entertainment app category each quarter now goes to streaming.
The 2024 Streaming App Industry Report from Appfigures shows the incredible growth of video streaming apps over the last five years. Consumer spending on the likes of Peacock, Paramount+, and Max has increased by almost 400% since the first quarter of 2019, reaching a record high of $2.1 billion in the first quarter of this year.
The report notes that the launch of several new streaming video services in the last couple of years has seen this category of apps receive more than 100 million downloads each quarter. This means that 52% of all revenue in the overall entertainment app category was generated by video streaming applications.
According to Appfigures, every 1,000 consumers in North America spend an average of $1,400 each quarter across the top streaming apps. Somewhat surprisingly, the best performer in terms of both downloads and in-app revenue was Max. It was downloaded approximately 6.4 million times from the App Store and Google Play in the US in Q1, while its gross revenue reached $244 million.
In terms of US downloads, Netflix was second behind Max with 5 million downloads during the first quarter. In the revenue charts, Disney+ was a close second with $220 million.
The worldwide picture is slightly different. Netflix had the most App Store downloads (39.6 million), while Disney+ generated most revenue ($465 million).
The report also analyzed millions of search queries on the App Store and their results to rank video streaming apps by how easy they are to find. Peacock had the highest discovery score, followed by Hulu and Max.
Elsewhere, it was found that a total of $3.8 billion was spent on entertainment apps last quarter, almost one billion dollars of which went toward short-form video apps such as TikTok. The category has seen the largest increase in consumer spending over the last five years, increasing 1,539% since 2019. Appfigures puts this down to people buying coins to reward live streamers on TikTok. It'll be interesting to see what happens if the app is banned in the US next year, something that looks increasingly likely.