Global interest in Netflix surges to 142% amid COVID-19 pandemic

Amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the global interest in Netflix rose to 142% between April last year to this year.

In data gathered by Learnbonds, searches of Netflix on Google had a significant spike in the first week of March 2020 — a time when most countries started implementing quarantine due to COVID-19. In that period, Netflix had a search popularity score of 75.

By the second week of March, searches grew to 17.3% and towards the end of the month it grew by 1.1% with a popularity score of 89.

In the first week of April 2020, the video streaming site's popularity score peaked to 100 with a growth of 12.3% from the last week of March.

From April 2019 to April 2020, Netflix's popularity grew 142%.

Before March's search scores, an overview of the searches between April 2019 and February this year, had an average popularity score at 41.

According to Leanboards, "the spike searches correlate with the period when the world began feeling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Leanboards said Netflix played an "important beneficiary of the change in behavior the pandemic has prompted."

According to their report, there was a spike in users in regions that had been greatly affected by the pandemic.

Most of the interest in Netflix came from users in South America, with Argentina leading with a peak popularity score of 100, Uruguay at 98 and Ireland at 96.

Other countries who were also listed among the top ten countries with the highest interest in Netflix include Colombia (93), Mexico (91), Chile (91). New Zealand (88), Ecuador (88), Canada (87) and Brazil (86).

Just recently, Netflix launched a newly improved parental controls feature that can help parents monitor and control what their children watch on the streaming platform.

Meanwhile, the Philippine government warned the public against an illegal text scheme claiming to give free Netflix subscription amid COVID-19. — Jannielyn Ann Bigtas/LA, GMA News