A hard-won summer programming event amid the ongoing pandemic drought of original content appears to have scored for Disney Plus.
According to mobile download figures from research and analytics company Apptopia, and provided to Variety, the Disney Plus app was downloaded more than 266,000 times in the U.S. from Friday through Sunday. The pre-recorded iteration of a 2016 Hamilton performance, obtained by Disney for $75 million, premiered Friday July 3.
The U.S. download figure represented a 72.4% uptick over Disney’s four-week average for the comparable Friday-Sunday period.
The Apptopia figures are merely indicators here—there’s not a direct correlation between a consumer downloading an app and signing up for a service the first time, although a significant number of folks who perform that function are indeed first-time subscribers to a video streaming service.
Also, Apptopia is measuring mobile downloads, and not all the app activity happening on connected TVs.
Notably, another mobile analytics/research company, App Annie, revealed that the Disney Plus app rose to No. 4 on the iPhone app charts over the weekend, trailing only TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.
The figures do indicate significantly increased usage of the Disney Plus app over the weekend amid the premiere of an amply promoted program. Disney has yet to release an official audience figure.
