NBCUniversal’s streaming service Peacock has reached 10 million signups, parent company Comcast said Thursday in its second-quarter earnings report.
“NBCUniversal successfully launched Peacock in [Comcast] Cable’s footprint in April, ahead of the streaming service’s U.S. nationwide launch earlier this month, with 10 million signups to date,” said Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts in the earnings report.
On an earnings conference call later, he said that the streamer’s early momentum “exceeded our high expectations.”
NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell on the call said that the Peacock team is looking at three metrics: signups, monthly average users and monthly active accounts, which can include several users in a single home. And he said trends have been “better than expected” so far “across the board,” even though data on the other metrics will only be shared down the line. Shell concluded that, while it was “early days” for Peacock, “we are very encouraged.”
The news on signups comes after AT&T’s WarnerMedia recently said its streaming service HBO Max had attracted 4.1 million overall subscribers in its first month.
The ad-supported Peacock became available April 15 to Comcast customers, followed by a national launch July 15. NBCU has said it hopes Peacock will attract 30 million to 35 million monthly active accounts by 2024.
Peacock’s top programmer Bill McGoldrick, who has spent the past year crafting a roster of original programming for the upstart streaming service, recently told THR that it was looking to offer “something different” in the streaming wars.
Peacock has been unavailable for a key segment of the U.S. population: people who stream on Roku or Amazon devices. The entertainment conglomerate has yet to solidify deals with the two tech firms to bring the streamer, with its 20,000 hours of TV shows and movies, to their platforms.
Roku and Amazon, which operates the Fire TV platform, control around 70 percent of the connected TV market combined, according to a 2019 report from Parks Associates. Roku, which sells set-top boxes, streaming sticks and connected TVs, is the largest player with nearly 40 percent of the market.
Peacock is available on many other streaming platforms, including Apple TV, Chromecast, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but those products are used by a much smaller slice of streamers. It can also be accessed via mobile devices and web browsers.
