WATCH VIDEO. Various resources point towards huge successes for Netflix in the Netherlands, but now the illegal torrent site and apps from Popcorn Time seem to beat these numbers.
Digital TV Research recently estimated the number of Dutch Netflix subscribers to be around 600,000, while the Telecompaper Consumer Panel said that 7% of the people now subscribe to the SVOD service.
According to TorrentFreak Popcorn Time usage figures show that most users come from the United States where the application is installed on more than 1.4 million devices, closely followed by the Netherlands with 1.3 million installs on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android.
According to the Dutch new site Android Planets there are 100,000 regular users of the service, 85% of which use the desktop version.
There are also versions available for Android and an iOS edition is expected any moment – both will include Chromecast functionality and come with VPN for anonymous access.
Popcorn Time has been called the Netflix for pirates, as it is the first site and app giving easy access to torrents in, indeed, a Netflix-like environment. Users can add subtitles in a number of languages.
The original app was launched this spring, but the developers withdrew the service within a few weeks. Others picked up on the idea and the latest Popcorn Time clone is Time4Popcorn, which promises “This PopcornTime service will never be taken down”.