In 2020, with the lockdowns and the curfew, streaming platforms, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney +, saw significant growth in their number of subscribers in France.
But behind the official figures, the number of users is actually much higher thanks to account sharing.
It has now been more than two months since the 6 p.m. curfew confined us after dark.
Evenings that must be well occupied, which is moreover during school holidays.
There are those who start writing, those who skim the TV program, those who turn on their video game consoles and those, more and more, who opt for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, OCS, Disney +, etc. .
With the confinements, the audience of streaming platforms has increased by 37% in one year, according to a Médiamétrie study.
Study which also lifts the veil on the real number of users, higher than we think.
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Take the example of Netflix, the most popular platform.
Officially, it claims nearly 8 million subscribers in France.
But, according to Médiamétrie, the Netflix site is consulted by 19 million people each month, more than double.
The explanation is quite simple: the subscriptions are shared.
A single account can be used by up to two people for Amazon Prime, four for Netflix and Disney +, and up to six for Apple TV +.
We are talking about legal sharing, authorized by the platforms.
More and more popular platforms
But there are also all the loans under wraps, the subscribers who pass their codes punctually to their friends, while arranging not to use them at the same time, which would block the account.
As a result, if we stick to Médiamétrie's figures, we can see the same significant differential for all platforms.
Amazon Prime Video goes from around 4 million subscribers to 7 million monthly users.
As for Disney +, we know that the application had been downloaded 1.8 million times in France within 24 hours of the launch in early April 2020, but we do not know the official number of subscribers.
Thanks to Médiamétrie, this is becoming clearer: 5.5 million French people consult the site or the application each month.