The “Game of Thrones” effect is in full force for HBO NOW, the premium network’s streaming service for cord cutters. According to new data from app market data provider App Annie, the iOS and Android versions of the HBO NOW mobile app have together generated $19 million in U.S. revenue for the two months containing the airing of “Game of Thrones” Season 7, as of Monday, August 21.
App Annie says it expects HBO NOW’s mobile apps to pull in well over $20 million by the end of the month.
The show’s outsized popularity has again sent the HBO NOW app flying up the Top Revenue charts on the iOS App Store, too. Roughly one month after the Season 7 premiere, HBO NOW became the number one app in terms of Overall iPhone revenue. It grabbed that spot on August 16th, 2017, and remained the top app by revenue for two more days.
According to a separate report from Sensor Tower, HBO NOW grossed approximately $2.6 million across iOS and Android on August 16th – a 41 percent increase over its prior record of $1.3 million on June 24th, 2016. That was the last time HBO NOW had claimed the top spot for Overall iPhone revenue. The date was two months after the Season 6 premiere, and two days before the final episode aired.
In case you’re wondering, HBO NOW doesn’t hit the Top Grossing charts as soon as “Game of Thrones” returns because of how the billing cycle works. You’ll notice that August 16th is roughly a month after the premiere, which is also when subscription billing kicks in.
That being said, HBO NOW still saw a massive bump thanks to “Game of Thrones” for the Season 7 premiere. As we reported in July, the start of the new season drove half a million HBO NOW app downloads in Season 7’s first week, and a 3x increase in revenue.
HBO also said at the time the show was the most-watched premiere in the network’s history, and it had broken HBO’s streaming records with the highest number of concurrent viewers to date across HBO NOW and HBO GO.
In addition to scoring the top spot on iPhone, when HBO NOW’s iOS and Android revenue is combined, it also snagged the number one spot by revenue on August 16th across both mobile platforms. In doing so, it surpassed both Pandora and Netflix, which typically claim the top two positions. And HBO NOW maintained this number one Top Grossing ranking through August 20th, says App Annie.
There’s also some indication that mobile users are more engaged with “Game of Thrones” this season, compared with the last. App Annie notes that HBO GO and HBO NOW have both seen 40 percent more time spent per day in the Android apps in the U.S., compared with the daily time spent when “Game of Thrones” Season 6 was airing back in 2016.
The firm is predicting that over the course of Season 7, U.S. users will spend well over 10 million hours in HBO GO and HBO NOW, just on Android.