ComScore: Netflix leads by US use and engagement

Netflix has the highest household penetration and viewing time per month among the major OTT content services in the US, according to ComScore.

The research firm’s ‘2017 US Cross-Platform Future in Focus’ report said that Hulu wasn’t as widely accessed but attracted comparable viewing engagement on a per-household basis, while YouTube and Amazon Video had the second and third highest household penetration behind Netflix.

It also noted that YouTube has seen its usage “shift heavily to mobile in recent years” with 70% of viewing time now from mobile devices, compared to 30% for desktop.

“The younger demographic segments are more likely to spend time on their mobile device and less likely to spend time watching live TV,” said the ComScore study.

“In fact, millennials already spend more time on mobile than they do watching live TV. It should be noted, however, that younger viewers are likely watching more TV via OTT services and time-shifted via DVR and video-on demand.”

The report said that nearly a third of the OTT audience is ‘cordless’ and doesn’t subscribe to pay TV, with half of those now streaming-only households. However, households with both TV and OTT were found to still watch more than five hours of live TV for every one hour spent watching OTT content.

Overall, social media and video viewing were found to be the two most popular online activities, together accounting for more than a third of all US internet time.

The report said that social media leads all categories in engagement, accounting for 20% of time spent online. This is followed by multimedia, which accounted for 14% of digital time spent.