It's been a few months since MoviePass made the startling and notable decision to cut prices across the board. The move has led to higher rates of subscription overall, and created various responses from theater chains across the United States. Although MoviePass is facing some scrutiny, the company announced today that it had hit a coveted milestone, reaching one million subscribers for the first time.
Today's news from MoviePass explains that a lot of the growth has happened very quickly. The service has grown 6500% since the initial announcement was made back in August, and MoviePass also says the service has grown much more quickly than some of the other notable platforms out there. This includes companies like Netflix, which took 39 months to reach a million subscribers and companies like Spotify, which took five months to achieve the same goal. Each of those platforms charge users on a monthly or yearly basis.
One million subscribers is small potatoes compared to some other platforms. The aforementioned Netflix already had more than 52 million U.S. subscribers at the end of the third quarter this year. Spotify has more than 30 million paid subscribers in the U.S. MoviePass is certainly small potatoes in comparison, but it's targeting a whole different audience--avid moviegoers. Still, MoviePass' growth has happened quickly. The service had only 20,000 subscribers before it dropped rates. Over the past few months, it bumped over to 600,000 users and has now achieved over a million. There's no indication at this point that growth is stopping, either.
The box office was down during 2017, even with the slew of holiday movies coming up that are expected to make up a bit for lackluster showings over the summer. There are a slew of huge movies coming in 2018 that will hopefully exceed expectations, and it looks like MoviePass will be ramping up efforts to get moviegoers to continue to subscribe next year. We'll just have to wait and see when those efforts reach a peak with U.S. audiences, and whether any additional competition comes out of the woodworks.
Of course, MoviePass is still dealing with growing pains. AMC has made efforts to curb the use of the pass in its theaters, and recently the company itself altered its terms of service in order to keep users from using the pass too much, whatever that means. Still, around $10 bucks a month isn't bad for someone who wants to see a few movies each month. You can learn more about the pass here. In addition, if you want to take a look at what all is coming up next year before making a big decision about yet another subscription, we have you covered. Be sure to take a look at the full 2018 movies schedule.
