Hulu Has Over 28 Million Subscribers in the United States

Hulu announced today that its U.S.-based subscriber base jumped by 40 percent in the past year, or 8 million subscribers, to 28 million total. This figure includes 1.3 million people who are currently signed up for the service for free via various promotions.

“In today’s direct-to-consumer world, viewers are demanding better when it comes to TV,” Hulu CEO Randy Freer said in a statement, “from the user experience to their content choices to the advertising.”

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The new milestone secures Hulu’s third-place position in the streaming market behind Netflix, with 149 million subscribers, and Amazon Prime Video, with 75 million subscribers. And it’s a crowded playing field: HBO Now and CBS (both with 8 million subscribers) round out the top five.

One issue for Hulu is that it’s U.S.-only. (Netflix has 60 million subscribers just in the U.S.) But international expansion is in the works. And two new heavyweights—Disney (Hulu’s primary owner) and Apple—are coming on board this year with their own offerings, making Hulu’s need to expand even more acute.

As you might expect, Hulu has a lot of plans around content and riding the binging wave. It will debut a new “binge advertising experience” by the end of 2019. And it will release two Marvel series in 2020 that are perhaps too adult for Disney+, which is family-focused.

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  • Skolvikings

    01 May, 2019 - 12:21 pm

    <p>If my family had to choose between Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video, we'd choose Hulu. As a cord-cutting family, it has the most shows that we enjoy watching, especially some of the ABC, FOX, and NBC shows.</p>

    • mruszczyk

      01 May, 2019 - 3:36 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#424763">In reply to Skolvikings:</a></em></blockquote><p>Very much agree, I'm a big fan of Hulu at this point. Of any streaming service I use Hulu the most, then HBO, Netflix, Amazon. I feel like everything I actually watch on Netflix could be found on Hulu as well so it's value proposition is even lower.</p>

  • George Rae

    01 May, 2019 - 1:28 pm

    <p>I wonder how many are free subscriptions from Spotify promotion? </p>

  • glenn8878

    01 May, 2019 - 1:35 pm

    <p>All these services have overlapping content, but only Netflix has consistency of the quality of streaming. Netflix is less likely to have blurry, low resolution, and constantly buffering video. Netflix is less likely to lose your place in the video. Much on-demand video requires you to watch commercials and they also lose your place and force you to rewind to the beginning. Live streaming has poor service. You can't beat using an OTA antenna in most cases. </p><p><br></p><p>There's tons of services and nothing to watch unfortunately.</p>

  • ruusterc

    01 May, 2019 - 6:18 pm

    <p>The problem with hulu is there the only content provider out of the big players amazon and netflix and cbs all access that arent available in canada</p>

    • fbman

      02 May, 2019 - 1:20 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#424894">In reply to ruusterc:</a></em></blockquote><p>Nothing a good VPN cant solve.</p><p><br></p><p>A lot of People where I live, get Hulu that way. Use the gift cards to pay (Hulu only accepts US based cards), a good VPN and you are streaming Hulu. </p>

  • Tiny

    Premium Member
    01 May, 2019 - 9:28 pm

    <p>Hulu works fine for me. I've been a subscriber for almost three years with a net cost of $47.92. I initially signed up with a three month free trial and then one year for $4.99 a month. I'm about ready to cash in Bing search rewards for another $25 gift certificate. That will give me a little over 4 months more service. By then I should be close to enough rewards for another gift certificate. This make my Hulu subscribing decision easy.</p>

  • irfaanwahid

    02 May, 2019 - 1:32 am

    <p>Just make the International already!</p><p>In a world where thing go global, Hulu is still sticking to US only.</p>

  • Cristobal

    02 May, 2019 - 10:05 pm

    <p>Besides the great content, it also has the best-looking app in all platforms.</p>

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    08 September, 2019 - 4:37 pm

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