Squid Game Season 3 Smashes Another Viewing Record For Netflix

EXCLUSIVE: Squid Game returned to Netflix once more on Friday, putting up another behemoth performance with the debut of the third and final season.

Season 3 amassed 60.1M views across all six episodes, breaking the streamer’s record for most views for a show in its first three days. It was easily the most-watched title of the week and has already landed on Netflix’s most popular non-English TV show list at No. 9.

Per Netflix, Season 3 ranked No. 1 on the weekly charts in all 93 countries where the streamer has a Top 10. That’s the first time a show has ever achieved such a feat in its debut week.

Season 2 of Squid Game debuted on the Thursday after Christmas, giving it not only an extra day of viewing in its premiere week but also the advantage of holiday viewing to draw such a large audience. In its first four days, Season 2 drew 68M views, landing at No. 7 on the most popular non-English TV list in its premiere week (and eventually settling at No. 2). While direct comparisons are difficult, Season 2’s performance does illustrate even further Season 3’s impressive feat. It’s possible that, with an extra day of viewing, Season 3 might’ve debuted ahead of its predecessor.

Speaking of prior seasons, both Seasons 1 and 2 also made appearances on the weekly Top 10 list as viewers caught up ahead of Friday.

As Deadline previously reported, Netflix has gone all out to promote Squid Game over the last year in the hopes that the two concluding seasons would live up to the first. Season 1 is still Netflix’s most popular title of all time with a whopping 265M views in its 91-day premiere window.

The streamer’s efforts appear to be working even better than they were six months ago, as Season 3 has already tallied 4.56B social impressions to date across Netflix global social channels — the most for any season of the series, Deadline can exclusively reveal.

“I am so grateful to the viewers who have given us such immense support and love all the way to the end, to the final season, that I don’t even know how to express my gratitude adequately. From Season 1 until now, over the past four years — and six years of my personal time poured into this project — I have experienced so much, traveled to so many places, met so many people, and received so much love, attention, and support,” Hwang said in a statement to Deadline on Tuesday. “These six years have been such a precious time in my life, and it makes me wonder if I’ll ever experience anything like this again. Season 3 has only been out for a few days, but for those who’ve already watched the previous seasons, I think you’ll enjoy it even more if you start again from Season 2. And for those who haven’t seen it yet, I really hope you’ll take the time to enjoy it. Since Seasons 2 and 3 are essentially one story, starting at least from Season 2 will greatly help you understand Season 3.”

Over the past several months, Netflix has welcomed fans to participate in immersive, high-stakes fan activations that allowed them to enter the world of Squid Game one final time before the series wraps up. Netflix says that the activations across more than 25 countries and six continents were overseen by more than 20,000 infamous Pink Guards. Of the 273,000 in-person fans who attended, nearly 93,000 of them participated in games inspired by the series. Netflix says more than 10M have tuned in online to watch these events as well.

The global activation tour ended with an event in Seoul on June 28 that hosted over 38,000 fans and featured appearances from director Hwang Dong-hyuk, stars Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-hun and nearly every cast member from the series.

Hwang says in his statement that he felt “a clear difference” between international trips before Season 1 and the promotional tour for Seasons 2 and 3.“So many people welcomed us and greeted us in Korean, saying things like ‘annyeonghaseyo’ and ‘kamsahamnida,’ and the number of people expressing their interest in and love for Korea had increased tremendously,” he continued. “No matter which city or country I visited, I could feel those traces and that influence. Korean restaurants and places related to Korean culture had also increased significantly compared to before, and I met many people enjoying Korean food and culture there. While these changes certainly aren’t solely because of Squid Game, I felt incredibly rewarded as a creator knowing that the series might have contributed, even in a small way, to the growing interest.”

Here’s another interesting tidbit to potentially highlight some of Squid Game‘s cultural cache: Searches for “Korean won” spiked after the release of all three seasons of the series, per Google Trends data.

It’s a good week for Korean content on Netflix, which has invested heavily in that area. Per the streamer, over 80% of members globally have watched Korean titles.

So, it’s not entirely surprising that, in addition to Squid Game‘s monster Season 3 debut, the No. 1 movie of the week is K-Pop Demon Hunters, also inspired by the K-wave.

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