Hulu grows US subscribers by 48%

Hulu’s original series include global hit The Handmaid’s Tale

US streamer Hulu grew its subscriber base by almost half in 2018 to take its total number of subscribers to more than 25 million across its SVoD and live TV services in the country.

The platform, which will soon be majority owned by Disney following its acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s stake, gained eight million subscribers last year, representing 48% growth on 2017.

According to the Santa Monica-based firm, the gains have put Hulu way beyond the US’s largest cable and satellite pay TV providers in terms of customer reach.

2018 marked the streamer’s best year for sign-ups and total subscribers as well as advertising revenue, and the firm believes its investment in technology and licensing programming have helped its growth.

Hulu expanded its on-demand library to over 85,000 episodes in 2018, adding more current series to its roster including The Good Doctor, Killing Eve, The Orville, Superstore and Grown-ish, besides becoming the exclusive home to every season of popular series such as ER, Lost, King of the Hill, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers.

Hulu, which also boasts popular original series including The Handmaid’s Tale and Castle Rock, found its audiences tend to value the flexible viewing experience SVoD services provide. Most subscribers to Hulu and its live TV package spend half their time watching on-demand, and the majority of its customers pay for the SVoD service rather than the bundle including live TV.

The streamer’s figures underscore the continued growth of OTT services as pay TV firms struggle to hold on to audiences. Netflix’s most recent quarterly results showed it grew its overall subscriber base to 137 million and its domestic numbers to 58.5 million, which led to a substantial jump in the company’s share price.

Netflix and Hulu, along with Amazon’s Prime Video, are set to help US SVoD subscriptions exceed 200 million by 2023, with three-quarters of US TV households expected to have at least one streamer subscription. Some analysts have suggested this figure is actually “conservative” and that two-thirds of US households already have an SVoD subscription.

According to the Digital Media Trends survey from professional services firm Deloitte, there has been a 450% increase in the number of SVoD subscriptions in 2017 from 2009.