Right now there is a war for who will be the service new cord cutters subscribe to. As of now, according to Apptopia that battle is being won by Hulu, followed by Pluto TV when looking at live TV streaming services in the United States.
According to Apptopia, live TV streaming service apps were downloaded over 23.2 million times in the 3rd quarter of 2019. That is a jump from just 13.1 million in the 3rd quarter of 2017. Hulu dominated these downloads with about 6 million downloads followed by Pluto TV in second place. From there, YouTube TV, Sling TV, fuboTV, AT&T Watch TV, and Philo followed in that order.
It is very interesting to see the growth of free services. Pluto TV saw a 1,811% jump in its downloads compared to 2017. And fuboTV had the second-largest jump in downloads as it saw a 168% rise compared to just a 47% jump for Hulu and an 18% jump for YouTube TV.
One service saw a drop in downloads according to this study, and that was Sling TV whose download numbers dropped 27% from 2017. (Note that does not mean Sling TV lost subscribers just that the rate of growth was slower.)
There were several interesting omissions from the report we saw from Apptopia. DIRECTV NOW – now called AT&T TV NOW – was not listed. PlayStation Vue was also not listed in this survey of apps with live TV.
So what do you think of this report from Apptopia? Leave us a comment and let us know.
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