Data: DIRECTV NOW, FuboTV & Hulu MAU Growing, Sling TV Slowing

DIRECTV NOW, fuboTV and Hulu have all seen significant growth over the last year while Sling TV has seen its level of growth slow down over the same period, according to new data released by Apptopia. The data is specific to users in the US and is based on the number of monthly active users (MAU) for each streaming service – who access that service through a mobile app. With Apptopia noting DIRECTV NOW has seen its number of MAU grow by 185-percent between March 2017 and March 2018. Likewise, fuboTV has seen a similar level of growth (170-percent) over the same time-frame while Hulu saw the least growth with 163-percent. Although the data does suggest that in the last quarter alone Hulu has seen some very impressive figures suggesting the service is likely to do even better going forward.

Sling TV, however, was noted as not seeing any growth between March 2017 and March 2018. Instead, the data suggests the use of Sling TV’s mobile app actually fell by 34-percent over the year. It is worth keeping in mind this is not the actual number of users of the Sling TV app but the growth of those MAU that fell. Whether this is due to a lack of new users in general to the service, or a matter of existing users having migrated from Sling TV to another service is not something that can be answered by the data.

Speaking of another service, one of the newest arrivals to the live TV streaming scene is YouTube TV and the announcement from Apptopia specifically mentions how YouTube TV was left out of the comparison due to the service having only launched in April of last year. Likewise, even when YouTube TV did launch it did so based on a slow rollout process and even still is not available to all in the US. In spite of this, however, Apptopia believes YouTube TV has already amassed close to one million MAU. The data collection firm qualifies this by stating that although other estimations suggest YouTube TV only has 300,000 subscribers, it is understood a number of those subscribers share account access with others – bringing the actual total of unique MAU to the one million mark.