Welcome to our fourth mini-blog. It’s about something really exciting in the world of entertainment – yes, streaming apps and their kind!
With everyone stuck in their homes, people are turning to digital entertainment for relief. Cloud-based digital entertainment applications like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple, and Walt Disney have experienced a significant uptick in demand. Despite a dull start to 2020, Netflix app downloads saw a 57% surge in March 2020, driving stocks up by about 1.4%. All this after WHO declared COVID-19 a global health emergency in January.
The latest big-name entrant into this high stakes game was Disney with its streaming service Disney Plus. The channel had set itself a target of 60 million subscribers in its first five years when it launched in November 2019. The lockdown-driven surge has meant that the channel has crossed 50 million subscribers within the first five months of its life!
Apart from providing a high-quality entertainment experience, Netflix has also come out with a collaborative solution (Netflix Party) where people from different places can watch the same movie or show together and talk to each other on a different audio channel. This provides a unique viewing experience to users, approximating the cinema-going experience.
Product development, augmentation, and roll-outs are in hyperdrive as media giants try to build strategies that will help them retain these subscribers and grow revenues once lockdowns lift. Digital entertainment companies looking to suggest relevant content to users need to come up with innovative offers and original content to stand out from the competition. In a crisis-struck era, technologies like Artificial Intelligence can really aid companies to precisely understand evolving user needs and offer content that is personalized, relevant, and updated.
