• by Wayne Friedman , January 5, 2022

AT&T says global HBO/HBO Max subscribers slightly overperformed at the end of 2021, hitting “approximately 73.8 million” -- up 6.3% from its June levels.

End-of-the-year results, which came from a Securities & Exchange Commission 8K filing on January 5, were higher than a previous projection of between 70 million and 73 million.

HBO/HBO Max global services subscribers amounted to 69.4 million at the end of June 2021. AT&T did not disclose the end-of-the-year U.S. HBO/HBO Max subscribers.

In September, U.S. subscribers came totaled 45.2 million -- down 1.8 million versus the second quarter. That was due, in large part, to HBO's decision to remove HBO from Amazon Prime Channels distribution platform. Immediately after pulling HBO from Amazon Prime Channels in September, it lost some 5 million of its subscribers.

In the fourth quarter of 2020, HBO/HBO Max had 60.6 million global subscribers and 41.5 million U.S. subscribers.

In long-term company projections, HBO/HBO Max expects it will reach between 120 million and 150 million subscribers by 2025.