Game of Thrones Leads to Big App Win

Whether you’re a Game of Thrones fan or not, it’s been almost impossible to miss the fact that the final season premiered this week – there’s been major media coverage, legions of social media postings, special events and general fan hysteria. So, how does the premiere of a final series lead to a big app win? Just ask creators HBO. The cult of Game of Thrones means that the TV network’s apps were also expected to generate a whopping one million new downloads.

The flurry of app installs saw the first HBO app, called HBO Now, soar to the top of the App Store over the weekend in anticipation of the first episode airing. In the USA, figures suggest that around 300,000 new mobile subscribers raced to download the app for both iOS and Android devices.

What’s interesting about this is the cult of Game of Thrones has translated to the best App Store performance in years for the network’s app. Its previous best position was in the mid-20s on the App Store charts. That was three years ago, making this week’s top spot acquisition all the more impressive.

Industry watchers say that the top spot app can expect to receive around 100,000 new downloads per day, for each day that it holds the number one position on the App Store. That means that the app could feasibly add half a million new installs to its lifetime tally in just three days. The numbers being talked about in the US also refer exclusively to new installs – i.e. those users who have never downloaded the HBO Now app to their device before. The actual number of installs for the week could be much higher, if previous users are tempted to re-download the app as a result of the Games of Thrones phenomenon.

HBO has a second app, called HBO Go which its cable and satellite customers can use. That app racked up even more downloads, with 400,000 new installs recorded over the same period – bringing the TV network enticingly close to the 1 million mark in just a few days.

The season premier was a big win for HBO with the network saying that 17.4 million viewers tuned in for the first episode when it aired, across all of its platforms including streaming app HBO Now and HBO Go. That makes around 1 million more viewers than tuned in for the last season premiere.