Did Netflix Find a New Downloads Growth Hack?

Ariel Ariel
Nov. 22

This is a single insight from This Week in Apps - Screaming at Chickens?. Check out the full article for more insights.


Netflix pulled a Peacock move last week by getting into live sports - specifically, boxing, a sport not streamed by many.

And Netflix did it well, building up a lot of hype for the fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul that culminated in the match last weekend.

Did it work?

Yes, it certainly did!

Looking at Appfigures download estimates for Netflix this year we can see two things.

The first is that downloads, which were very stable before the weekend, jumped by a lot. The second is that a lot, in this case, is nearly three million new downloads. That's more than twice the number of new downloads OG streamer gets in a typical Friday - Sunday.

If you're thinking, "oh, just double??", think again because most apps don't even get close to a million downloads a day. Unless you're TikTok, but Netflix isn't.

Friday contributed to a little over 1M downloads, Saturday added 1.2M, and 630K came in on Sunday, according to our estimates. Subtracting the expected downloads, we’re left with 1.7M new users who came in for the fight, which Netflix can now monetize.

Most downloads, 23% of the 2.9M total, came from the US where Google Play was responsible for about twice as many downloads as the App Store. India came in second and was the only other country with a double-digit share (12%). Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey round out the top 5, all with single-digit shares ranging between 9% and 5%.

Netflix is following Peacock's lead here with its entry into live sports, the new "hack" to grow in streaming. I expect to see more streamers do the same as we get into 2025.

App Intelligence for Everyone!

The insights in this report come right out of our App Intelligence platform, which offers access to download and revenue estimates, installed SDKs, and more! Learn more about the tools or schedule a demo with our team to get started.

Are you a Journalist? You can get access to our app and market intelligence for free through the Appfigures for Journalists program. Contact us for more details.

All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.

Tagged: #streaming

Related Resources

Squid Game Unleashed Hits 3M Downloads in under Two Weeks
Insights
Squid Game Unleashed Hits 3M Downloads in under Two Weeks

A new season of one of Netflix's best original shows, Squid Game, just dropped and with it a new mobile game called Squi...

Apple's Not Going to Like This - Meta Quest Sales Jumped 18% this December
Insights
Apple's Not Going to Like This - Meta Quest Sales Jumped 18% this December

I've been following the Meta Quest for several years now, using downloads of its companion app as a proxy for unit sales...