The Apple TV+ team in Cupertino is probably having an early celebration in their corporate offices before they party again for Independence Day in the United States — they've just overtaken Paramount+ in market share.
At least that's according to JustWatch — a streaming aggregator that tries to figure out how the streaming services are competing with each other. Of course, Apple doesn't share Apple TV+ figures, so all of this is an estimate.
However, as reported by Cult of Mac, the latest numbers coming out of JustWatch indicate that Apple TV+ now has a 9% share of the streaming market, slightly above Paramount+.
Of course, Apple TV+ still has a way to go to catch the big streamers like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix who both command over 20% market share. However, Hulu currently only has 10% and Disney+ has 11%, so both of those services are within striking distance for Apple. Max is also only at 14%.
That's especially true since, only three years ago, Apple TV+ only garnered about 3% market share. So, while it's slow, Apple is seeing steady growth with its streaming service. So, with a few more years, Apple TV+ could potentially find itself only behind Netflix and Prime Video.
That trend seems to be playing itself out so far this year. While Max, Disney+, and Hulu seem to have flat overall growth, Apple TV+ seems to be climbing slowly but consistently in market share. There's a chance that Hulu could find itself behind Apple's service by the end of this year at this rate.
I'm not surprised to see this play out this way. While services like Hulu are trying to maintain subscribers mostly through bundling itself with Disney+, Apple TV+ continues to invest in original content that — at this point — is starting to garner Apple TV+ the title of the "new" HBO. You know, since Max decided to kill that brand.
That was a bold move, Cotton. Let's see how it works out for them.
