'Squid Game 2' watched 490 million hours in first week

'The Squid Game Season 2,’ which was released last Thursday, became the most-watched Netflix title in the first week of its release.

According to Netflix's official site, 'Netflix Top 10,' on Wednesday, Squid Game Season 2 received 68 million views in the fourth week of December, its first week of release. This surpassed the previous record of 50.1 million views for the first season set by the American drama ‘Wednesday’ Season 1 in November 2022. Views are a metric that shows the popularity of a series by removing the variable of running time.

The Squid Game Season 2 also set a new record for ‘first-week watch time.’ The seven-episode Season 2 has a total runtime of seven hours and 10 minutes and a total of 487.6 million watch hours worldwide. This surpasses the previous record set by The Squid Game Season 1, which was released during the fourth week of September 2021 (September 20-26), with 448.73 million hours.

In the OTT industry, viewer response is often measured by the number of hours watched in the first week of release because the timing of content release is different. The Squid Game Season 1 also ‘bounced back’ in watch time, backed by the success of Season 2, ranking third in the fourth week of December (67.1 million hours).


이호재 기자 hoho@donga.com