Even though the movie wasn’t that great.
AT&T has just released its earnings for the fourth quarter, and it turns out that HBO MAX had 17.2 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter. That’s double what it had in the third quarter. The biggest reason for this is, Wonder Woman 1984.
With this addition, HBO MAX now has 41.5 million subscribers. That’s ahead of its initial forecasts by around two years. Before HBO MAX debuted in May 2020, AT&T stated that its five-year goal for the service was to get to 50 million total US subscribers and between 75 million and 90 million globally.
This growth is expected to continue in 2021, as HBO MAX is going to be releasing all of its movies in theaters and on HBO MAX this year, at the same time. Which is likely going to bring in even more subscribers to the service. But the real question here is whether those subscribers will stay on. Or if they will jump ship after they watch the movie(s).
HBO MAX is still facing stiff competition
HBO MAX is actually one of the more expensive streaming services out there, coming in at $15 per month. Sure Netflix is more, but it does also have cheaper plans. HBO MAX has a single plan available. Though it also has a much larger catalog then it did as HBO.
It is still competing with the likes of Disney+, Hulu, Apple TV+ and even Peacock – who announced this week that they are adding the entire WWE library to their service in March.
Attributing to HBO MAX’s growth in the fourth quarter, is likely the deals it struck with Amazon Fire TV and Roku. Allowing it to be available on all of the major platforms in the US.
Even though Wonder Woman 1984 was deemed as not that great of a movie, by most people, it still brought in a ton of new subscribers. And HBO MAX is hoping they stick around.