As the nation readies itself for Super Bowl Sunday, let’s review how this year has gone for the NFL. The league’s ratings for the 2022–2023 season were down 3% from the prior year, and there’s one big reason to blame: Amazon’s Thursday Night Football. Despite the drop, sports leagues will continue to move full steam ahead with exclusive streaming deals while Amazon waits for consumers to catch up.

Nearly half of the US will watch live sports this year, and nearly a quarter will watch via digital, per our forecast. Live sports streaming isn’t going anywhere, but as the playing field gets more crowded, behaviors among platforms, advertisers, and consumers are shifting.

Amazon’s $1 billion-a-year Thursday Night Football bet appears to be paying off, drawing record Prime sign-ups and reinforcing advertisers’ confidence in Amazon’s streaming tech. Once a pillar of pay TV, live sports have become the next big thing in streaming.

Prime Day is Amazon’s biggest sales event, but it offers other retailers a boost as well. This year, 44% of Prime Day digital buyers in the US considered shopping only on Amazon, while 32% checked out Walmart and 24% browsed Target as well.

While Amazon Prime Day was bigger than ever this year, one key category took a hit. Electronics sales decreased by 5% from last Prime Day, while growth shot past 25% in home, garden, and tools, as well as in beauty and health.

For one-third of US digital buyers, Prime Day offered an opportunity to finally click purchase on lower-priced items. But for 28%, inflation had the opposite effect, leading them to pass on deals that weren’t a necessity.

This year, Amazon will see $12.52 billion in Prime Day sales worldwide, per our estimates. The US will account for more than 60% of Prime Day sales, but outside of the US, sales growth will be stronger as Amazon brings the shopping event to more international markets.

Prime Day will once again prove to be a major retail event this year, not just for Amazon but for its competitors as well.

Amazon Prime Day 2022 comes as ecommerce is buffeted by rising ad and supply chain costs and softening growth. This report provides a Prime Day sales forecast for the US, and a breakdown of strategies brands should use during the midsummer event.

Netflix is practically synonymous with video streaming in the US, with 76% of US teens and adults surveyed using the platform. Amazon Prime Video is the next most popular service, used by 64%, while Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max round out the top five.

HBO Max was the most downloaded US mobile entertainment app in 2021, with 46.0 million downloads and a monster growth rate of 101%. Second-place Netflix saw downloads drop by 15% year over year to 38.0 million.

Four of the top US streaming services spent a record-smashing total of $11.15 billion on original content in 2021 as each platform vied to draw—and keep—subscribers. Netflix laid out $6.08 billion, more than the other three services combined. Amazon Prime Video grew its spending the fastest, by 105%, in a play for Netflix’s title as the leading subscription video streamer.

It should come as little surprise that Amazon was the top US shopping app in 2021, downloaded 40.0 million times that year. More remarkable is Shein’s leap to the No. 2 spot, up from seventh place in 2020. The Chinese fashion giant had 32.0 million US downloads under its belt in 2021, 68% more than the year prior.

Netflix is the top US streaming service when it comes to original content, with 38% of the country’s adults agreeing the platform offers the best selection of original shows and movies. Amazon Prime Video comes in second, trailing by a sizable margin with 11%, while Hulu and HBO Max rank third and fourth.

In the US, Hulu is the fastest-growing subscription streamer on connected TV devices, with the number of households that watch it via those devices rising by 53% between January 2020 and June 2021.

In the US, Netflix is the top video streaming platform on connected TV devices, drawing 26% of all viewing time via devices like smart TVs and game consoles in June 2021.

Amazon’s $300 billion lead over Walmart

Prime Day sales will surpass $10 billion

Amazon Prime Day promises to be different in 2020 amid the backdrop of a pandemic, major shifts in consumer spending patterns, and a later-than-usual event timing.

If the coronavirus pandemic has produced any winners in the retail sector, digital merchants are among that number.