Paramount Plus subscriber count has grown to nearly 40 million

Paramount Plus’ subscriber count has ballooned to almost 40 million with the service gaining 6.8 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2022 alone, Paramount announced in its earnings report on Tuesday. An increase in subscriber count led to more money for the company as well — its direct-to-consumer revenue, which includes Paramount Plus and its free TV streaming service, Pluto TV, increased 82 percent year over year.

While revenue from subscriptions for both Pluto TV and Paramount Plus grew 95 percent year over year, advertising revenue increased 59 percent. The company says Paramount Plus subscribers watched more shows for longer periods of time as well. This, along with a higher subscriber count, was mostly driven by the service strengthening its roster of shows.

Paramount Plus exclusively released a live-action Halo TV show last month in addition to the second season of Star Trek: Picard, an original spinoff of the iconic series. It’s also the home to Star Trek: Discovery, Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years, and Rugrats and iCarly reboots. Yesterday, Paramount Plus announced that it’s bringing back Yo! MTV Raps on May 24th.

Paramount Plus, which has been around for a little over a year now, may not be considered a streaming behemoth yet, but it looks like some of its original content is attracting more subscribers (which will likely increase following its expansion to the UK and Ireland in June). At the same time Paramount Plus notes its subscriber count is on the rise, Netflix lost a small fraction of its over 200 million subscribers last quarter, its first subscriber decline in over 10 years. Netflix hopes to make up for that loss by potentially cracking down on password sharing and rolling out a cheaper, ad-supported option. Paramount Plus already offers a fairly affordable ad-supported $4.99 / month plan (or a $9.99 / month ad-free option).