A hard-won summer programming event amid the ongoing pandemic drought of original content appears to have scored for Disney+.
According to mobile download figures from research and analytics company Apptopia, and provided to Variety, the Disney+ app was downloaded more than 266,000 times in the U.S. from Friday through Sunday (July 3-5). 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+ 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+ app over the weekend amid the premiere of an amply promoted program. Disney has yet to release an official audience figure.
This story originally appeared on TVT's sister publication Next|TV.
