clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Most Netflix customers don’t pay for other streaming services. But Hulu and HBO Now subscribers do.

A majority of HBO Now and Hulu subscribers pay for Netflix.

Photo of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on the Q3 earnings call wearing a “Stranger Things” Christmas sweater from Target
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings
Screengrab from Netflix YouTube video
Rani Molla is a senior correspondent at Vox and has been focusing her reporting on the future of work. She has covered business and technology for more than a decade — often in charts — including at Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.

Most people who pay for Netflix are loyal to Netflix, meaning they don’t subscribe to other streaming services like Hulu or HBO Now.

By contrast, a majority of HBO Now and Hulu subscribers — 62 percent and 61 percent, respectively — do pay for Netflix. Among Netflix subscribers, 80 percent pay just for Netflix, while 17 percent also pay for Hulu. And there’s very little overlap with HBO — less than 1 percent of Netflix buyers subscribe to HBO Now.

The data looks at September subscribers of Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, DirecTV Now, CBS All Access and SlingTV by Second Measure, a research firm that tracks billions of dollars in anonymized credit card purchases. The firm cannot break out Amazon Prime Video since it comes as part of a regular Prime subscription, and does not currently track YouTube TV.

In terms of how other streaming services overlap, while 37 percent of Hulu subscribers pay only for Hulu, 61 percent also pay for Netflix and 4 percent also pay for SlingTV.

...who also subscribe to Netflix ...who also subscribe to Hulu ...who also subscribe to SlingTV ...who also subscribe to CBS All Access ...who also subscribe to HBO Now ...who also subscribe to DirecTV Now
...who also subscribe to Netflix ...who also subscribe to Hulu ...who also subscribe to SlingTV ...who also subscribe to CBS All Access ...who also subscribe to HBO Now ...who also subscribe to DirecTV Now
Share of Netflix subscribers 100.00% 17.14% 2.66% 1.08% 0.59% 0.05%
Share of Hulu subscribers 61.01% 100.00% 3.90% 2.37% 1.02% 0.07%
Share of SlingTV subscribers 55.70% 22.94% 100.00% 3.10% 0.88% 0.05%
Share of CBS All Access subscribers 59.41% 36.74% 8.16% 100.00% 1.13% 0.22%
Share of HBO Now subscribers 62.38% 30.28% 4.44% 2.17% 100.00% 0.10%
Share of DirecTV Now subscribers 50.95% 18.69% 2.41% 3.92% 0.01% 100.00%

Of course, Netflix is older than these other over-the-top streaming services. It also has a lot more subscribers than the other services.

Netflix reported nearly 53 million domestic subscribers in the U.S. last quarter, about four times as much as Hulu, which last reported 12 million subscribers back in 2016. Similarly, Second Measure data estimates that one in four U.S. consumers subscribe to Netflix. The market share for other over-the-top services is much smaller:


This article originally appeared on Recode.net.