Netflix has reported that Stranger Things season 3 has racked up more viewership after four days than any other Netflix original series. According to the company’s report, 40.7 million member accounts have watched at least part of Stranger Things season 3. (Each “view” is counted after a member account has watched at least 70 percent of an episode.) Netflix claims that this is the fastest that an original series has accumulated such a large audience.
According to the streamer’s numbers, 18.2 million member accounts completed the eight-episode season in four-day period. The previous record holder was Netflix’s original comedy, Murder Mystery, starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. During the weekend of its release, Murder Mystery was streamed by over 30 million households.
In April, Netflix said that its superhero comic-book drama The Umbrella Academy was viewed in 45 million member accounts globally in a month. In January, Sex Education and You were on their way to making 40 million views in their first months. By comparison, Stranger Things has racked up those views in less than a week, proving that the show has an immense audience.
Per usual, Netflix did not release the total number of viewers or the average audience for each episode in its data report. After season 2 pulled an audience of 15.8 million viewers within three days of its release, the numbers established that Stranger Things can be counted among television’s highest-rated shows. An average of 8.8 million viewers in the U.S. watched season 2 within three days of release.
As of the first three months of the year, the streaming giant has about 149 million subscribers. Now that Disney has acquired the rights to Hulu and scheduled the launch of its streamer Disney+, Netflix’s glory days may be over. Disney is poised to be a colossal competitor to Netflix. It remains to be seen how competition from other streamers will affect Netflix in the coming year.