February 28, 2025
SEOUL – Netflix announced Thursday that the second season of “Squid Game” dominated global viewership in the latter half of 2024, despite premiering just six days before the year ended.
According to Netflix’s latest engagement report, which tracks member viewership from July to December 2024, subscribers watched over 94 billion hours of content during this period — marking a 5 percent year-over-year increase.
Among series, “Squid Game” season 2, which debuted on Dec. 26, was the most-watched series in the latter half of 2024 with 86.5 billion views. The United States mystery drama “The Perfect Couple” followed with 75 million views, while the crime anthology “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” placed third with 70 million views.
For films, the US thriller “Carry-On” led with 137 million views, followed by “The Union,” starring Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg, with 131 million views. The action thriller “Rebel Ridge” ranked third, logging 129 million views.
According to Netflix, a key trend in viewing patterns during the second half of 2024 was the strong engagement driven by animated films.
Ten of the top 25 most-viewed films were animated, including “Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch” (67 million views), “Trolls Band Together” (61 million), “That Christmas” (60 million), “Sing” (58 million), and “Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie” (56 million).
Additionally, nearly a third of all Netflix viewing came from non-English content, with South Korean, Japanese and Indian productions performing well.
South Korean hits included “Officer Black Belt” (40 million views), “Mission: Cross” (23 million) and “Love Next Door” (20 million). Japan also saw strong numbers, with “Tokyo Swindlers” logging 12 million views and “Drawing Closer” garnering 8 million.
The biannual engagement report covers 99 percent of video watch time on Netflix. The company defines “views” as the total hours watched divided by a title’s runtime.
“Success for a show or film on Netflix comes in all shapes and sizes,” Netflix stated on its website.
“But no single title — not even our most popular — accounts for more than 1 percent of total viewing on Netflix. For example, ‘Squid Game’ season 2, which had the most hours viewed in this report, accounted for only 0.7 percent of viewing. It’s why we invest in a wide variety of quality shows and films and why we need to make them great, so that every time a member comes to Netflix, they press play and stay,” Netflix said.
SOURCE: NETFLIX
SOURCE: NETFLIX