The Mandalorian dominates Star Wars television viewership worldwide, with 14.5 billion minutes viewed in 2021 alone according to Nielsen’s year-end streaming chart. No other Star Wars series has come close to matching its sustained popularity across Disney+’s 154 million global subscribers spanning more than 80 countries. However, the landscape is shifting. Andor’s second season finale achieved 931 million viewing minutes during the week of May 12, 2025, becoming only the second Star Wars show after The Mandalorian to claim the top spot across all streaming content in the U. S. and Canada.
The challenge with mapping Star Wars TV popularity “across countries” lies in data availability. Most publicly reported viewership statistics focus heavily on U. S. Nielsen ratings and global aggregate figures rather than granular country-by-country breakdowns. What we do know is that Disney+ operates in over 80 markets, and platforms like FlixPatrol and JustWatch track regional Top 10 rankings, though detailed demographic splits by nation remain proprietary. what the available data tells us about how Star Wars television performs internationally, where certain shows resonate differently, and what the viewership trends suggest about the franchise’s global trajectory. Beyond raw numbers, we’ll explore demographic patterns, premiere performance comparisons, the curious resurgence of prequel-era content, and the concerning trend of declining viewership that analysts have identified across Disney’s Star Wars programming.
Table of Contents
- Which Star Wars TV Shows Rank Highest in Global Viewership?
- How Does U. S. Viewership Compare to International Markets?
- What Demographics Drive Star Wars TV Viewership Globally?
- Why Are Prequel-Era Films Outperforming Original Trilogy Content?
- Is Star Wars TV Viewership Actually Declining?
- How Do Tracking Platforms Measure International Popularity?
- What Does the Future Hold for Star Wars TV Internationally?
Which Star Wars TV Shows Rank Highest in Global Viewership?
When comparing premiere viewership across star Wars series, The Mandalorian Season 2 leads with 1,032 million viewing minutes. Obi-Wan kenobi followed closely at 1,026 million minutes, though that figure represents two episodes rather than one. Ahsoka premiered with 829 million minutes across its two-episode debut, while The Mandalorian Season 3 opened at 823 million minutes. Andor Season 1, despite releasing three episodes at launch, generated 624 million minutes initially. These numbers reveal an interesting pattern. Shows featuring established characters from films or previous animated series tend to generate stronger premiere interest.
Obi-Wan Kenobi benefited from decades of audience familiarity with the character. Ahsoka drew on the devoted fanbase cultivated through The Clone Wars and Rebels animated series. Andor, featuring a character with comparatively limited screen time before his standalone show, faced a steeper climb to find its audience despite critical acclaim. The comparison also highlights how premiere numbers don’t tell the complete story. Andor’s slower start belied its eventual cultural impact. By its second season finale in May 2025, the series was achieving viewership numbers competitive with any Star Wars release, suggesting that word-of-mouth and critical reputation can overcome weaker initial recognition.
How Does U. S. Viewership Compare to International Markets?
American viewers generate the most detailed publicly available data, but interesting patterns emerge when examining the limited international information. Andor has been the most-watched streaming title among Asian viewers since its Season 2 premiere on April 22, 2025, accumulating 215 million viewing minutes from that demographic alone. This represents a meaningful portion of overall viewership and suggests the show’s more grounded, espionage-thriller tone resonates across cultural boundaries. However, extrapolating U. S. patterns to other markets requires caution.
Disney+ launched in different countries at different times, and licensing arrangements affect what content appears where. Some markets received Star Wars programming through other Disney-owned channels before Disney+ arrived. These variables create uneven baselines for comparison that make definitive international rankings difficult to establish. JustWatch tracks activity from over 60 million monthly users across 140 countries, and FlixPatrol monitors daily Top 10 rankings for Disney+ across multiple regions. Yet even these services primarily report broad trends rather than precise viewership figures broken down by series and country. The data infrastructure for granular international streaming analysis simply doesn’t match what Nielsen provides for the domestic market.
What Demographics Drive Star Wars TV Viewership Globally?
According to Parrot Analytics data, Star Wars television maintains approximately 74% male versus 26% female viewership globally. This skew is more pronounced than many comparable franchises and has persisted across multiple series despite efforts to diversify storytelling approaches. The audience also trends older than Marvel content, with most viewers aged 30 and above. These demographics create both opportunities and challenges for Disney’s content strategy.
The older male audience represents reliable, engaged viewership with disposable income for merchandise and theme park visits. However, it also suggests the franchise may struggle to cultivate the next generation of fans at the same rate it did during the original and prequel theatrical eras. Andor’s demographic performance offers a noteworthy exception to some patterns. Its success among Asian viewers and strong critical reception hint at potential for Star Wars to expand its appeal when the storytelling ventures beyond familiar formulas. Whether Disney interprets this as a mandate for more mature, complex narratives or views it as a niche success remains to be seen.
Why Are Prequel-Era Films Outperforming Original Trilogy Content?
FlixPatrol data from May 2025 shows a surprising hierarchy among Star Wars films on Disney+. The Phantom Menace leads with 110 points, followed by Revenge of the Sith at 95 points and Attack of the Clones at 63 points. The original trilogy trails significantly, with A New Hope at 45 points and The Empire Strikes Back at just 18 points. This ranking likely reflects generational shifts in the viewing audience. Millennials who grew up with the prequels now dominate streaming demographics, and nostalgia drives content choices.
The children who saw The Phantom Menace in theaters during 1999 are now in their 30s and 40s, precisely the age group that streams most actively. Meanwhile, younger viewers discovering Star Wars for the first time may gravitate toward the prequels’ more modern visual effects and faster pacing. The tradeoff for Disney is whether to lean into prequel-era content creation or attempt to rehabilitate interest in the original trilogy. The Mandalorian threads this needle by setting its story in the post-Return of the Jedi period while incorporating prequel-era elements like Mandalorian culture and clone references. Ahsoka similarly bridges eras. This approach maximizes appeal across generational divides but requires careful narrative balance.
Is Star Wars TV Viewership Actually Declining?
According to Luminate Data analysis, Disney’s Star Wars television output has experienced declining viewership over time. Analysts characterize this as appeal to a “gradually-diminishing core audience” rather than expansion of the fanbase. The pattern suggests that while dedicated fans remain engaged, the franchise isn’t converting casual viewers into committed followers at sustainable rates. The revenue picture complicates this assessment. Andor generated approximately $315 million for Disney through the end of 2024, a substantial figure but one that must be weighed against production costs for the series’ cinematic visual quality.
Whether that return satisfies Disney’s expectations depends on internal benchmarks that aren’t publicly disclosed. This declining trend presents a warning for the franchise’s long-term health. Star Wars benefited for decades from theatrical releases that functioned as cultural events, driving broader awareness and merchandise sales. Television series, even successful ones, may lack the same capacity to generate excitement beyond existing fans. The question facing Disney is whether more focused, quality-driven programming like Andor can reverse this trajectory or whether the decline reflects fundamental audience saturation.
How Do Tracking Platforms Measure International Popularity?
Several services attempt to quantify streaming performance across borders, each with different methodologies. FlixPatrol tracks daily Top 10 rankings that Disney+ displays in various countries, aggregating this data into points-based scores. JustWatch monitors user activity across its 60 million monthly users in 140 countries, measuring what people search for and add to watchlists.
Nielsen provides the most granular U. S. data through actual viewing minute measurements but has limited international reach. The example of Andor’s Asian viewership demonstrates both the value and limitations of available data. We know the series performed very well with that demographic, but we don’t know which specific countries within Asia drove those numbers, whether urban or rural viewers contributed differently, or how those patterns compare to other Star Wars releases historically.
What Does the Future Hold for Star Wars TV Internationally?
Disney’s strategy appears to involve fewer, more carefully developed Star Wars projects following a period of aggressive content expansion. The strong performance of Andor’s second season suggests appetite exists for prestige-quality Star Wars storytelling, though whether that translates to broader international growth remains uncertain.
The franchise’s heavily male, older demographic presents both a reliable foundation and a ceiling that future content must address. The most likely path forward involves continued reliance on established characters and eras while selectively experimenting with new tones and settings. International markets will remain important to Disney+’s overall subscriber strategy, but Star Wars content will probably continue functioning primarily as retention programming for existing fans rather than a significant driver of new international subscriptions.
