Netflix says ‘Stranger Things 4’ racked up over 1 billion hours viewed

Stranger Things 4 has become the most popular English-language series on Netflix with the premiere of its last two episodes. The streaming giant has revealed that the show has racked up 1.15 billion hours of viewing time within the first 28 days of each part’s release. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the first seven episodes had a viewing time of 930.32 million hours within 28 days of the show’s debut. Meanwhile, episodes 8 and 9 reached 221 million hours viewed in the week of June 27th to July 3rd. 

That makes the series second only to Squid Game, which crossed 1.65 billion hours viewed within its first 28 days of release and which currently holds the title for the most-viewed show in Netflix history. It even has the potential to overtake the Korean hit, seeing as it has only been a few days since the last two episodes came out. 

Netflix, however, has yet to reveal whether Stranger Things 4’s popularity has had a significant impact on its subscriber numbers. In 2021, the company said it posted its best subscriber growth of the year during the third quarter, thanks in part to Squid Game. But in April this year, Netflix admitted that it lost about 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022 due to several issues, such as stiffer competition and account sharing. The company said back then that it’s taking steps to turn things around, but we’ll have to wait for its next earnings report to find out whether Eleven and the rest of the Hawkins crew were of any help.