Not to be too hyperbolic, but Squid Game Season 1 stands as one of Netflix’s most important and impactful television shows ever. The too-close-for-comfort dystopian thriller cleverly spins socioeconomic inequality into thriller life-or-death games en route to become the streamer’s most watched original TV show by far. Beyond that, it has also served as one of the Western world’s strongest introductions to non-English programming this side of Japanese anime. Squid Game’s influence on global entertainment runs so deep that shares of South Korean media companies saw their shares plummet when plummeted when Season 2 received “only” decent reviews (currently holding an 89 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, an 8/10 on IMDb, and a 62 on Metacritic).
The three-year gap between seasons, combined with the undeniable success of its debut run and the anticipation surrounding its upcoming third-season conclusion later this year, demands a thorough analysis of Season 2’s performance. After nearly four weeks of availability, how does Netflix view the results? Let’s examine a few different data sources to find out.
Record-breaking in its first week, per Netflix
Netflix ranks its all-time Top 10 list based on total “views” of a title within the first 91 days of its release, calculated by dividing total hours watched by a title’s run time, which gives us a rough estimate of how many times it has been watched (I’m not a huge fan of this metric, but that’s a column for another day).
As of this writing, Squid Game S2 has only been available for 28 days. Yet it’s already become Netflix’s second most watched non-English season of TV (trailing only Squid Game S1) and third most watched TV season overall with 152.5 million “views.” For comparison, Season 1 racked up 265.2 million, while Wednesday Season 1 (252.1 million) and Stranger Things 4 (140.7 million) previously rounded out the top three.
Season 2 broke records in its first week, accumulating 68 million “views” and besting Wednesday S1’s previous record of 50.1 million. It also generated 132 million global viewing hours, shattering Season 1’s record of 111 million hours. “Squid Game Season 2 is on track to become one of our most watched original series seasons,” Netflix said in its quarterly report released on Jan. 21.
The streamer borrowed an old broadcast strategy by utilizing its two NFL Christmas games served as a global lead-in for Squid Game Season 2, while partnering with countless brands and launching a successful mobile companion game to generate buzz.
The world’s most in-demand series in its first month, per Parrot Analytics
Parrot Analytics, where I work as Senior Entertainment Industry Strategist, measures consumption first and foremost and online engagement across Google, Wikipedia, IMDb, YouTube and other social platforms to measure a title’s digital footprint.
From Dec. 26 to Jan. 18, Squid Game is the most in-demand TV series worldwide, per Parrot. Its lead in that span is downright astonishing as it outperforms the second-place title by 404 percent. While Season 1 needed nine days to become the most in-demand TV show in the world as an organic word-of-mouth hit, Season 2 claimed the top spot on day one.
Season 2 consistently outperforms Season 1’s demand metrics at premiere (+953 percent), 12 days post-premiere (+268 percent) and 23 days post-premiere (+134 percent). These numbers demonstrate that audiences continue to watch and engage with Squid Game in a multitude of ways.
Watched by over two million households in its first four days, per Samba TV
Samba TV uses Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) and third-party data to measure household-level TV viewership. Though Season 2 was released just five days before we bid adieu to 2024, it immediately became Netflix’s largest debut of 2024 in the U.S.
Samba TV’s numbers show 2.24 million U.S. households watched the Season 2 premiere within its first four days, leading Netflix’s yearly rankings ahead of The Perfect Couple (2.15 million). Over its first 15 days of availability, 3 million households viewed the premiere episode, though this figure lags behind The Perfect Couple (4 million), Fool Me Once (3.8 million) and Griselda (3.2 million).
However, this viewing pattern aligns with historical viewing behavior. The three-year wait for Squid Game Season 2 resulted in significant pent-up demand, leading to immediate binge viewership. Conversely, the three limited series were new to Netflix and elicited sampling over a longer period.
Top show on streaming in 2024, per Nielsen
Squid Game Season 2 debuted on Dec. 26, and in just four days its 16 episodes (between two seasons) accumulated a whopping 4.9 billion viewing minutes on U.S. TVs in the Christmas week (Dec. 23 to Dec. 29). This marks the highest weekly total (measured Monday through Sunday) for any streaming title in 2024, according to Nielsen. Wow.
That high mark easily tops other hugely anticipated 2024 streaming shows. Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys topped out at 1.329 billion minutes in its highest week last year, while Bridgerton peaked at 3.467 billion minutes. Admittedly, episode counts and availability play a role in this engagement metric, which favors Netflix’s binge and batched releases. But regardless of delivery, it’s clear Squid Game is an unrivaled hit.
The show, combined with NFL playoff games, the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match, the hit movie Carry-On and other key Q4 programming helped Netflix match its record best share of U.S. TV viewing (8.5 percent) in December.
What about Season 3?
Whether you deeply loved the cliff-hanger second season or loathed the long-awaited follow-up matters very little when exploring its commercial performance in a vacuum. No matter how you slice it, Squid Game’s return lived up–and potentially exceeded–even the loftiest expectations for Netflix (budgets notwithstanding). Now, the only question that remains is: Can the show maintain this momentum for season three?
