HBO Max launched in the United States at the end of May. Today, almost two months later, WarnerMedia parent company AT&T has announced that the streaming service already has over 4 million subscribers.
Speaking on an earnings call earlier today, AT&T CEO John Stankey revealed to analysts and investors that HBO and HBO Max reached a combined total of 36.3 million subscribers by the end of June.
Therefore, HBO Max reached its 4.1 million subscriber count in little over a month. The numbers do pale in comparison to the incredible 10 million subscriber count Disney+ achieved in only 24 hours, but the HBO Max feat is impressive nonetheless.
Roughly 3 million were retail customers while the remaining 1.1 million came from activations through AT&T platforms such as bundle plans. The latter is surprisingly low considering the millions of customers that are eligible for the service.
WarnerMedia already had 30 million cable customers and HBO Now subscribers that could be moved over to HBO Max at launch. But Stankey revealed the company has had trouble getting people subscribed to cable services over to the service.
Improving that situation is now an area of focus, the CEO said. The company is also having discussions with Roku and Amazon about getting the streaming service onto their respective Roku TV and Fire TV platforms, which are the two most popular in the US.
The negotiations aren’t going as smoothly as they could, though. Amazon, in particular, has reportedly taken an “approach of treating HBO Max and its customers differently” than competing services and their respective customers.
WarnerMedia insists that HBO Max should be launched as an independent app on both Roku and Amazon platforms, but these company want the streaming service integrated into their Channels section like HBO and HBO Now.
Whatever the outcome, it seems customers will enjoy the service. The amount of time spent inside the HBO Max app is up an impressive 70% compared to HBO Now thanks to the expanded content library.