Squid Game is Netflix most popular show, with 142m households watching in the first 28 days

"There  is  no  better  example  of  this  than Squid  Game, a  unique  Korean  story  that  first  captured  the zeitgeist  in  Korea  and  then  globally.  Released  on  September  17,  it  has  become our  biggest  TV  show  ever. A mind-boggling 142m member  households  globally  have chosen  to  watch  the  title  in  its  first  four  weeks. The  breadth  of Squid  Game’s  popularity  is  truly  amazing; this  show  has  been  ranked  as  our  #1  program  in 94  countries  (including  the  US).  Like  some  of  our  other  big  hits, Squid  Game has  also  pierced  the  cultural zeitgeist,  spawning  a Saturday  Night  Live skit and memes/clips  on  TikTok with  more  than  42  billion  views. Demand for  consumer  products  to  celebrate  the  fandom  for Squid  Game is  high  and  those  items  are  on their  way  to  retail  now."

Source:  Netflix Q3 2021 Letter to Shareholders, 19th October 2021 

Note 1 - This smashes the previous record of 82m set by Bridgerton in January 2021

Note 2 - This is 2/3 of Netflix 214m member households

Note 3 - Netflix definition for 'watching' is to watch at least 2 minutes

Twitch has over 30m average daily visitors and an average viewership of 2.5m at any given moment

 "Facts & Figures

Average viewership at any given moment - 2.5 Million+

Unique creators streaming each month - 7 Million+

Average daily visitors - 30 Million+

Employees around the world - 1,800

Minutes watched in 2020 - 1 Trillion+"

Source:  Twitch Press Centre, retrieved 1st February 2021

Facebook has 1.84bn daily active users

 "Facebook daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.84 billion on average for December 2020, an increase of 11% year-over-year.

Facebook monthly active users (MAUs) – MAUs were 2.80 billion as of December 31, 2020, an increase of 12% year-over-year.

Family daily active people (DAP) – DAP was 2.60 billion on average for December 2020, an increase of 15% year-over-year.

Family monthly active people (MAP) – MAP was 3.30 billion as of December 31, 2020, an increase of 14% year-over-year.

Capital expenditures – Capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, were $4.82 billion and $15.72 billion for the fourth quarter and full year of 2020, respectively.

Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities – Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $61.95 billion as of December 31, 2020.

Headcount – Headcount was 58,604 as of December 31, 2020, an increase of 30% year-over-year."

Source:  Facebook's Q4 2020 Results, 27th January 2021

82m households watched (at least some of) Bridgerton on Netflix in the first 28 days

 "A record 82 million households around the world watched Netflix original series Bridgerton in its first 28 days.

Netflix reported that the period drama has made the top 10 in every country except Japan – hitting number one in 83 countries including the US, UK, Brazil, France, India and South Africa.

The success of the series also propelled the books, by Julia Quinn, into The New York Times best seller lists for the first time – some 18 years after they were first published."

Source:  Advanced Television, 28th January 2021

Netflix has 204m paying subscribers

"Netflix powered past the 200 million subscriber mark in 2020 to cap its biggest-ever year of growth, driven by viewership gains during COVID-19.

In the fourth quarter of 2020, Netflix added 8.51 million paid streaming subscribers, about 2.5 million more than expected, to stand at 203.7 million worldwide at the end of the year."

Source:  Variety, 19th January, 2021

OnlyFans has 85 million subscribers & 1 million creators

 "The site, which has boomed in popularity in the past year, is technically open to anyone – from personal trainers to artists and cooks – but it’s best known for one thing: nudes. Creators charge subscription fees for exclusive content, put up pay-per-view posts, and generate income from tips and livestreams.

A spokeswoman for OnlyFans told Guardian Australia there are more than 1 million creators worldwide, 85 million registered users, and it paid out more than US$2bn ($2.7bn) globally this year."

[...]

"Use of OnlyFans exploded during the pandemic, going from 7.5 million users last November to 85 million now."

Source:  The Guardian, 22nd December 2020

Carat Trends 2021

 Carat's Trends for 2021 - 12 trends to help navigate the next few years.

Carat Trends 2021 - The Year of Emotionally Intelligent Marketing from Carat Global

Apple App Store customers spent over $540m on apps on New Year's Day 2021

"[Apple] App Store customers [spent] $1.8 billion on digital goods and services over the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, driven largely by spending on games. Customers ushered in 2021 by setting a new single-day spending record of over $540 million on New Year’s Day."

Source:  Press Release from Apple, 6th January 2021

Over 10% of songs streamed around the world are by British artists

 "A new analysis from record labels association the BPI reveals that 1 in every 10 songs (10.1%) streamed around the world is by a British artist. The UK’s share of global streaming is four times greater than its share of global GDP (2.2%)1, underlining the UK’s exceptional performance in music. 

The BPI, which represents over 450 UK-based record labels, carried out the analysis based on the music charts of 14 major music markets2, which together account for around three quarters of global recorded music consumption. The 1 in 10 result highlights the extraordinary global influence of British music. The ease of accessing UK music via streaming services and worldwide promotion by labels means that more British artists are now connecting with more fans to build international careers. Music markets previously out of reach, notably in Asia, South America and Africa, are much more accessible thanks to streaming’s global reach and record labels’ digital marketing. Newly-signed artists can now also expect to have a more immediate international impact than previous generations."

Source:  Press release from the BPI, 31st December 2020

Amazon delivered over 1.5 billion parcels over Christmas 2020

 "Amazon is reporting a record-breaking holiday shopping season that saw more than 1.5 billion toys, electronics and household goods delivered amid the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“Amazonians around the world have truly shown what it means to be customer-centric and support our communities this year,” Jeff Wilke, CEO of worldwide consumer at Amazon, said in a press release on Tuesday (Dec. 29). 

“When our customers — including healthcare workers on the front lines — most needed essential supplies, our teams and partners went above and beyond to stock and deliver those items,” he said."

Source:  PYMNTS, citing a press release from Amazon, 29th December 2020

Note - I'm assuming that this covers the period from Black Friday onwards.

176 songs received over 1 billion video views on TikTok in 2020

"The growth of TikTok in 2020 produced some staggering numbers. Over 176 different songs surpassed 1 billion video views as TikTok sounds. Earlier this month, "The Playlist" was revealed as part of the Year On TikTok: Top 100 retrospective, highlighting the most significant songs on TikTok in 2020. Together, those songs racked up over 50 billion video views on over 125 million creations, and 5 of them reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Nearly 90 songs that trended on the platform in 2020 climbed onto the Top 100 charts in the U.S., with 15 of those reaching #1 on a Billboard chart. Just in the past year over 70 artists that have broken on the platform have received major label deals, including Claire Rosinkranz, Dixie D'Amelio, Powfu, Priscilla Block and Tai Verdes, and dozens more have charted on Rolling Stone's Breakthrough 25. To help take stock of music's massive year on TikTok, we're unveiling our first-ever U.S. music report."

Source:  Tiktok's Year in Music, 16th December 2020

More than 3bn people a month access Facebook's 'family' of services

Source:  Facebook's Q2 2020 earning slides, July 2020

Note - The 'family' of services is Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp

Etsy sold more than 12m masks in April 2020

"Etsy began pushing homemade masks in early April, and the results panned out in a big way: total sales on the platform doubled last month, by and large thanks to a surge in face mask sales. For comparison, Etsy’s marketplace sales figures between January and March were up only 16 percent.
More than 12 million face masks were sold during April, totaling around $133 million in sales. Etsy says they represented the second largest category of product sales across the entire site during the month of April."
Source:  The Verge, 6th May 2020

5G is available in 378 cities in 34 countries

"Viavi Solutions Inc today revealed new industry data demonstrating a rapid surge in the spread of 5G technology. As of January 2020, commercial 5G networks have been deployed in 378 cities across 34 countries, according to the new VIAVI report “The State of 5G Deployments,” now in its fourth year."
Source:  Press Release from Viavi, 26th February 2020

Netflix and Google (inc YouTube) collectively account for nearly 25% of all internet traffic

"Sandvine, a provider of network intelligence solutions, has released its 2019 Global Internet Phenomena Report.
[...]
Video is over 60 per cent of the total downstream volume of traffic on the Internet.
Netflix is 12.60 per cent of the total downstream volume of traffic across the entire internet and 11.44 per cent of all internet traffic.
Google is 12 per cent of overall internet traffic, driven by YouTube, search, and the Android ecosystem.
Gaming traffic and gaming-related bandwidth consumption is increasing as gaming downloads, Twitch streaming, and eSports go mainstream.
BitTorrent is over 27 per cent of total upstream volume of traffic, and over 44 per cent in EMEA alone.
Facebook applications make up over 15 per cent of the total internet traffic in APAC."
Source:  Advanced Television, 12th September 2019

There are more than 500m SVoD subscriptions globally

"Gross SVoD subscriptions increased by 139 million in 2018 to 508 million – or up by 38 per cent, according to the SVOD Databook from Digital TV Research. The net subscriber count rose by 83 million in 2018 to reach 357 million – up by 31 per cent. This means that the average SVoD subscriber paid for 1.43 SVoD subscriptions by end-2018 – up from 1.05 in 2010.
“China and the US together accounted for 63 per cent of the global total in 2018,” advises Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research. “China overtook the US in 2018 to become the gross SVoD subscription leader. China added nearly 60 million subscriptions in 2018 alone, with the US up by 27 million (despite its relative maturity). India nearly doubled its subscription base.”"
Source:  Advanced Television, 18th September 2019

More than 50% of browser-based Google searches don't result in a click

Source:  Data from Jumpshot, reported in a blog post by Sparktoro, 13thaugust 2019

More than 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube each minute

"Your average person could spend their entire lifetime trying to watch all the content uploaded to YouTube in just one day.
The platform’s users upload more than 500 hours of fresh video per minute, YouTube revealed at recent press events. That works out to 30,000 hours of new content per hour, and 720,000 hours of new content per day.
Divide 720,000 out, and you’ll see that 82.2 years — yes, years — of new video are uploaded to YouTube each and every day.
This is the first per-minute upload amount we’ve gotten from YouTube since VidCon 2015, where CEO Susan Wojcicki revealed that 400 hours were being uploaded every minute. (That works out to 65.7 years’ worth each day, FYI.) In 2013, a third-party report from Tubular Labs estimated 300 hours were being uploaded.
While these upload amounts are staggering, they’re actually slim compared to the watch time stats YouTube’s also revealed recently. At the NewFronts last week, the platform said more than 250 million hours of content are watched just on TV screens each day. That works out to 173,611 hours being watched per minute — compared to the 500 being uploaded. And that 250 million hours doesn’t even include browser and mobile viewing, for which YouTube hasn’t broken out exact numbers."
Source:  TubeFilter, 7th May 2019

Over 2.1 billion people use Facebook's apps on a daily basis

"Facebook said over 2.1 billion people now use its family of applications—Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger—on a daily basis, and more than 2.7 billion do so on a monthly basis.
Facebook reported an average of 1.59 billion daily active users at the end of the second quarter, up 8% compared with the year-ago period. Wehner said gains in India, Indonesia and the Philippines helped drive growth."

Source:  AdWeek, 26th July 2019

Avengers: Endgame has generated over $1bn in 3D ticket sales

"Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame, the  critically acclaimed epic conclusion to the historic 22 film superhero franchise, has now generated over $1 billion in 3D ticket sales worldwide since the film debuted on screens, according to data from ReadD.
The film is only the third in history to reach this milestone along with Avatar and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. To date, approximately 45 per cent of the film’s box office has been generated from 3D ticket sales. Avengers: Endgame is the fastest film to ever hit the $1 billion mark in 3D box office."

Source:  Advanced TV, 8th May 2019