Hello, and welcome to Protocol Entertainment, your guide to the business of the gaming and media industries. This Friday, we’re taking a look at global app charts in search of apps you may have never heard of. Plus: what to read, watch and play this weekend.
The biggest apps you’ve never heard of
We’ve all gotten accustomed to the idea that the streaming wars are a series of battles between four or five big players. Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and Amazon Prime continue to dominate the news cycle, making it easy to forget that there’s a whole world of apps and services out there that are seeing equally impressive levels of usage.
This week, data.ai, the company formerly known as App Annie, issued its State of Media & Entertainment Report that serves as a good reminder that all those other services out there.
Some apps that aren’t in the mainstream dominate entire regions or demographics. Crunchyroll, for instance, is among the most popular streaming apps used by Gen Zers across all countries included in data.ai’s measurements, with the exception of South Korea and Japan, where its service has strong homegrown competition.
- The most-likely used app among millennials in the United States? Redbox, followed by Plex.
- U.S. baby boomers and Gen Xers tend to favor the TV Guide app, followed by DirecTV.
Data.ai only measures mobile app downloads and usage, which explains why Netflix wasn’t among the top apps in the aforementioned category: Most people prefer to use Netflix on their TVs.
- Netflix does have the largest global footprint among video streaming platforms, according to data.ai, and has clocked more than 1 million mobile app downloads in over 60 countries.
- Netflix is also the streaming app with the most monthly active users worldwide, but it is defending that spot against an unexpected competitor. Ranked second is MX Player, a streaming app that’s huge in India, but virtually unknown in most Western…