The spread of COVID-19 continues to boost the consumption of home entertainment.
According to The NPD Group, stay-at-home orders have resulted in a 72% increase in the number of Netflix subscriber profiles that were used to stream video content each week.
“While entertainment is not essential for survival, it’s still an essential way to stay sane, while people shelter at home,” says John Buffone, executive director, industry analyst at The NPD Group. “There have been notable streaming video preference shifts toward escapist titles and family programming that viewers are bingeing on to keep themselves entertained.”
The NPD Group used its Subscription Video Track Service to compare regions where stay-at-home orders have had a bigger impact versus areas of the country where restrictions haven’t been as tight. The biggest uptick in streaming has been seen in the Tri-State region of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In that area, the average amount of time each Netflix profile was used to stream video on a weekly basis rose 37%. That’s a 10% larger increase than in the rest of the country.
In areas with less population, sales of DVD and Blu-ray releases have shown growth amid the pandemic.
As families spend time at home together, streaming video content and video games have joined select toy and game categories including puzzles and outdoor products in experiencing robust sales increases.
