Not only has Disney managed to beat Wall Street analyst’s expectations for their new subscriber numbers, they’ve also managed to pass Netflix’s subscriber base for the first time. Blake & Wang P.A entertainment attorney, Brandon Blake, looks at this milestone in more detail.
Topping Netflix
We see them add 14.4M subscribers during this quarter, considerably higher than the estimated 10M, and bringing Disney+ itself to 152.1M. Across the Disney stable of streamers, which includes ESPN+ and Hulu as well, Disney now own 221.1M subscriptions, passing Netflix’s 220.7M subscriptions. Despite this milestone, we haven’t actually heard how many of these were bundled subscribers, which could mean they have been counted more than once.
Modest Domestic Growth
Despite the slow-down in domestic subscriber numbers, they did manage some modest growth in the North American market, rising about 100,000 subscribers. Disney+ added just under 1M subscribers internationally in the same period, too. Hulu managed about the same, while ESPN+ added half a million new subscriptions.
This comes despite them unveiling a coming price hike for all three streaming platforms. It seems that the Disney Company are looking to increase their revenue per user more directly, especially as it is already fairly low for their two anchor subscription platforms. They’ve also promised an ad-supported tier for Disney+ at some point in the 2023 cycle.
While the victory over Netflix is, as we mentioned, a little dubious given bundled subscribers, this again highlights the industry-wide reevaluation of how to present streaming services in a world which has seen even the Netflix brand name lose traction.
Overall, Disney is one of the few to beat expectations for Q2, and they display an overall strong balance sheet that continues to grow in raw dollar numbers as well as subscribers- a victory indeed for this particular quarter.
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