Netflix Says ‘Stranger Things 4’ Crosses Over 1 Billion Watch Hours — Did It Surpass Squid Game’s Views?

"Stranger Things 4" is now the second most watched Netflix series.

Most Popular English-Language Series on Netflix

With the premiere of its final two episodes, "Stranger Things 4" has overtaken all other English-language Netflix series in terms of popularity. The show collected nearly 1.15 billion hours of viewing time in the first 28 days of each part's release, according to the streaming giant.

Citing the The Hollywood Reporter, Engadget reported that within 28 days of the show's release, 930.32 million hours of the first seven episodes were streamed. Meanwhile, during the week of June 27 to July 3, 221 million hours of episodes 8 and 9 had been viewed.

This places the Netflix series second only to "Squid Game," which received 1.65 billion hours of viewing in its first 28 days and is now the most-watched Netflix series ever.

'Stranger Things 4' Might Surpass 'Squid Game's' Record

However, CNET noted that if it remains popular, "Stranger Things 4" can potentially surpass "Squid Game" if it continues to amass viewing hours toward its ranking through July 28.

However, the news outlet pointed out that there are a few things to take into consideration when it comes to Netflix's watch-time rating.

Obviously, the longer the runtimes of the show, the more favorable it is to the watch-time popularity rankings. At 778 minutes, "Stranger Things 4" has a runtime that is almost 60% longer than "Squid Game's." Because of this, "Stranger Things 4" has an edge over other shows in that each account can stream more episodes in a single season. Notably, the most recent season of "Stranger Things 4" is nearly twice as long as the show's first season.

Another factor to consider is that because the season was released in two different batches of episodes, "Stranger Things 4" has a longer watch duration.

Netflix Lost Significant Amount of Subscribers

Netflix has not yet disclosed if the success of "Stranger Things 4" has significantly affected the number of subscribers to its service, as per Engadget. In 2021, the company said that "Squid Game" contributed to the subscription count, noting that the third quarter saw its strongest subscription increase of the year.

Netflix, however, acknowledged in April of this year that the first quarter of 2022 saw a loss of roughly 200,000 customers as a result of a number of problems, including increased competition and account sharing.

'Stranger Things 4's' Popularity Crashes Netflix

As previously reported, the streaming giant struggled to stay operational last Friday as millions attempted to stream the eagerly awaited "Stranger Things 4" volume 2. Users had received an error message notifying them that there was a connection issue with the servers.

At 3:01 a.m. ET, user complaints about Netflix problems skyrocketed when "Stranger Things 4" volume 2 premiered, according to the global uptime tracking website Downdetector.com. At its peak hour, Netflix received more than 15,000 error reports, but after a while, things began to be under control.