Netflix U.S. app downloads rose 24% and iOS 54% on premiere day; GTA VI pre-orders jumped 436% in 24 hours
Key art for Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look. Photo = Netflix
IN ONE LINE
On the day Rockstar Games gave Netflix a six-hour head start on the GTA VI extended look, Netflix U.S. app downloads rose 24% and GTA VI pre-orders rose 436%. What the publisher handed over was not a rights package but a six-hour premiere window; what the streamer received was a day of net-new installs.
Netflix U.S. app downloads rose 24% from the previous day on Aug. 27, the day Rockstar Games premiered its extended look at Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA VI). The figure comes from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
Downloads that day also ran 20% above the prior 30-day daily average. Rockstar Games placed the roughly 26-minute video on Netflix for six hours before releasing it on YouTube and its own website.
iOS downloads up 54%… App Store rank moved from 96th to 35th
The gain was concentrated on Apple. iOS downloads rose 54% from the previous day, while Android downloads fell 13%.
Rankings moved with them. On Aug. 27 the Netflix app reached 35th on the U.S. free-app chart of Apple's App Store, up from 96th the day before against a recent average near 76th. The pattern held through the weekend, with the app at 40th on Aug. 30.
Netflix U.S. app downloads, Aug. 27, 2026, vs. previous day. Data = Sensor Tower
Mobile users up 35% in the premiere hour… web visits more than double the 12-week average
Sensor Tower measured the hour beginning at 3 p.m. ET, when the video went live. U.S. mobile app users in that hour were 35% above the previous hour and roughly 50% above the same hour a day earlier. Against the same hour a week earlier the increase was 41%, and against the average of the previous 12 Thursdays it approached 50%. U.S. web visitors in that window ran more than 125% above the 12-Thursday average. The figures come from Abe Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower, provided to GamesBeat (secondary citation).