Thanks to the avalanche of memes and a rapidly growing popularity, it quickly became apparent that The Mandalorian was Disney+’s flagship series. The first-ever live-action Star Wars series debuted when the new streaming service first launched in the United States on November 12. With a weekly release schedule as opposed to the binge method, the show soon passed HBO’s Game of Thrones and Netflix’s Stranger Things in demand, cementing its place in the pop culture conversation. Most importantly, the series helped rocket Disney+ to a staggering 28.6 million subscribers by February, nearly half of Netflix’s 60 million paying domestic customers.
The internal goal at Disney was to launch the service worldwide within two years. However, the coronavirus pandemic has slowed the company’s rollout strategy while taking a massive bite out of the Magic Kingdom’s profits. Disney’s stock has plummeted nearly 32 percent since the beginning of February. Fortunately, Disney+ managed to launch in seven key European markets on March 24, and The Mandalorian is already proving to be an equally massive attention draw. If Disney+, which is seeing increased traffic during this global quarantine, can post big sign-up numbers overseas, it may serve as Disney’s saving grace during this unprecedented situation.
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The Mandalorian is the number one digital original series in all seven European markets over the last week, according to Parrot Analytics. In Germany, the blockbuster Star Wars series was 43.21x more in demand than the average TV series. Not only was the show the number one digital original in the market, but it was also the number one most in-demand series overall on March 24. It’s a trend seen across Europe since Disney+’s introduction.
In the UK, the series was 34.95x more in demand than the average TV series. In addition to being the number one digital original, it was also the number five overall most in-demand series. In Italy, The Mandalorian was 32.33x more in-demand than the average TV series. Besides being the number one most in-demand digital original, the series was also the second most in-demand overall series in the market. In Spain, the series was 31.96x more in-demand than the average TV series. As the number one digital original, The Mandalorian even beat out one of the country’s most in-demand series, La Casa de Papel. It was also the third most in-demand series overall.
In Switzerland, the Pedro Pascal-led show was 25.1x more in-demand than the average TV series. It was both the number one digital original and the number one series overall. In Ireland, the series was 24.45x more in demand than the average TV series. It was also the number five most in-demand series overall. In Austria, The Mandalorian was 18.03x more in-demand than the average TV series. It was also the number two most in-demand overall series in the market.
On March 24, six of the seven European launch markets were in the top ten global markets for The Mandalorian by per capita demand. The number one market is still the U.S., but Germany and the United Kingdom became the number two and three top markets when Disney+ launched. On Friday, the streaming platform will also launch in India, where Netflix has publicly eyed its next 100 million subscribers.
This is a rare boon at a time when Hollywood is facing a historic downturn. It’s even believed by some industry analysts that new direct-to-consumer services such as Disney+ stand to benefit from the current situation even more than incumbents such as Netflix. If the early returns on The Mandalorian are anything to go by, Disney+ can make up significant ground in the streaming wars over the next few months.
Parrot Analytics is the leading global content demand analytics company for the multi-platform TV business. With the world’s largest TV audience demand datasets, the company currently tracks more than 1.5B daily expressions of demand in over 100 languages from 200+ countries.
