Today, The Walt Disney Company announced its second quarter earnings and discussed them with investors during a conference call. During this call, an impressive amount of growth in Disney+ subscribers was detailed.
What’s Happening:
- Disney+ has seen a 33% growth in subscribers over the last year. They attracted 7.9 million new customers in the first three months of calendar 2022, putting their total number of subscribers at 137.7 million.
- Meanwhile, ESPN+ has seen a 62% increase and Hulu has grown 10%.
- Across the three services, Disney has 205 million subscribers globally. That is coming remarkably close to Netflix’s 221 million, as that streamer is beginning to struggle among all the new competition.
- In the United States, Hulu still has more subscribers than Disney+.
- Disney also said they are still confident that they will meet their Disney+ subscriber targets and that the business will become profitable in 2024.
Additional Disney+ Discussion Points:
- Disney currently expects to release 500 international original titles each year, with 140 in Asia, 150 in Europe, 100 in India, and 200 in Latin America.
- One specific project is the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea project currently in development in Europe, Nautilus.
- The company is planning to roll-out Disney+ into 53 new markets. However, some of the regions that Disney+ plans to launch later this year, such as Poland, are being impacted by the current geopolitical situation.
- Content spending in 2022 will be lowered slightly from $33 billion to $32 billion.
- On that note, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said: "We believe that great content will drive subscribers, and subscribers will drive revenue growth."
- The Disney+ ad-supported tier will come to the United States by the end of the calendar year.
- Disney+ tracks (among other things) the first thing people watch on the service as they presume it is why they signed up.
Sign up for Disney+ or the Disney Streaming Bundle (Disney+, ESPN+, and ad-supported Hulu) now