Hulu announced this week that it now has over 25 million active subscriptions in the US, a growth of 47 percent year-over-year. This, the firm says, makes the service bigger than the country’s largest cable and satellite pay TV providers.
“In 2018, Hulu led the industry in attracting and engaging subscribers, building a powerful technology stack and cultivating a brand that both consumers and advertisers love,” Hulu CEO Randy Freer said in a prepared statement. “Looking ahead, Hulu is in the best position to be the #1 choice for TV – live and on-demand, with and without commercials, both in and out of the home.”
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Hulu also notes that ad revenue grew over 45 percent in 2018 to nearly $1.5 billion, a record for the service.
As for content, Hulu says it now offers more TV episodes than any other US-based streaming service, with over 85,000 on-demand episodes. It also has a growing library of well-received Hulu Originals, like The Handmaid’s Tale, which collectively received 27 Emmy nominations in 2018. And its Hulu + Live TV service, which provides live and recorded TV functionality, now supports over 970 local live stations.
That said, Hulu—which was created by industry giants 21st Century Fox, AT&T, Comcast, and The Walt Disney Company—isn’t profitable. The firm lost about $440 million in the third quarter of 2018, and that number was over double its loss from a year earlier. And its biggest competitor, Netflix, has over twice as many subscribers as does Hulu.