Subscription Video App Spend Reaches $329M In Q3

U.S. consumers spent around $329 million in the top 10 subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) apps across the App Store and Google Play in Q3 — an increase of 15 percent from Q1. According to Sensor Tower, the new data also represented growth of 43 percent over Q3 2017.

Netflix remained at the top of the U.S. SVOD revenue ranking for Q3, with an estimated $132 million in consumer spending. That shows a year-over-year Q3 growth of 78 percent. While that is impressive, Netflix’s year-over-year growth was outpaced by rival Hulu, which saw its revenue climb 86 percent to an estimated $39 million.

In fact, of the top five U.S. SVOD mobile apps, only HBO NOW fell in year-over-year Q3 revenue, with the app taking in $41 million last quarter, which was down 40 percent. Though the top five SVODs were the same as for all of 2017, the data showed that two services saw significant growth over the past year.

The first was YouTube TV, which ranked at number six last quarter and saw an estimated $16 million in user spending on the App Store. “This figure was more than five times the $3 million we estimate the app grossed on iOS in the year-ago quarter, a fact that can be attributed to its expansion into new markets since then, in addition to greater subscriber adoption,” wrote Randy Nelson, head of mobile insights for Sensor Tower.

The second SVOD to show impressive growth was the ESPN Live Sports app, which launched in-app subscriptions in the second quarter and generated approximately $4.6 million last quarter, a quarter-over-quarter increase of about 119 percent.

“Our data also shows significant year-over-year revenue growth for the CBS app, which is the mobile portal to the network’s CBS All Access service. According to our estimates, user spending in the app last quarter reached $6 million in the U.S., an increase of 50 percent over the $4 million spent in 3Q17,” added Nelson.