Streaming services have become the new way of how we as individuals in the twenty-first century. There is a definitive increase in revenue produced by streaming services since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. However, there was a steady incline in profits before the pandemic. The pandemic, however, put streaming services on the map in a new way. Many individuals when stuck in lockdown were in need of different activities. While Youtube and other video streaming services are popular and have been growing in popularity since their inception. Streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ started before the pandemic, but these services blew up drastically since the pandemic. According to David Curry, “Revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic has surged, as millions of Americans were forced indoors due to lockdowns. More cable operators have launched video streaming services; we expect revenue per user to increase in the next few years as a result.” (2022). In 2019 streaming services made an overall revenue of approximately 18.8 billion dollars. However, during the year 2020 revenue jumped up to 24.1 billion dollars.
Looking toward the future there are many different concerns about if revenue will not continue to grow at this rate in the future. While understanding that 2020 was an anomaly. Looking at revenue for 2021 it appears that the revenue increase is returning to normal. Normal in this case means before the spike in profits that came with the Covid-19 pandemic. Once streaming services hit a steady stream of revenue in 2016, streaming services were increasing at a rate of approximately 3 billion dollars in revenue a year. However, during 2020, that number shifted to closer to 6 billion dollars in revenue. Looking at 2021 there was an increase in revenue from 2020 of approximately 3 billion dollars.
References
Curry D., Video Streaming App Revenue and Usage Statistics (2022). (2022, January 11). Retrieved from https://www.businessofapps.com/data/video-streaming-app-market/