All those subscribers leaving Netflix might be heading to Disney+. In figures announced after the streaming service’s fiscal second quarter, Disney+ boasted a gain of 8 million subscribers, bringing its total to 137.7 million. This helped the parent company bring in $19.2 billion in revenue for the quarter, though net profits were down nearly 50% from a year earlier. Forecasts projected a gain of just over 5 million subscribers in the period for Disney’s flagship streaming service, which launched in November 2019.
“Our strong results in the second quarter, including fantastic performance at our domestic parks and continued growth of our streaming services — with 7.9 million Disney+ subscribers added in the quarter and total subscriptions across all our DTC offerings exceeding 205 million — once again proved that we are in a league of our own,” Disney CEO Bob Chapek said in a statement Wednesday.
While she expects Disney+ to continue a strong growth pace in the second half of the of the year, CFO Christine McCarthy said “the delta may not be as large as previously anticipated” during Wednesday’s earnings call with investors. The service hopes to have between 230 and 260 million subscribers by the end of fiscal year 2024.
Netflix lost $50 billion in market cap when it announced that it had lost subscribers last quarter for the first time in a decade, so Disney investors were keen to hear how the rival streaming service fared.
“That is going to give us the ability to adjust our price while maintaining our strong value position,” Chapek said on the call. “We believe that great content is going to drive our subs, and that greater subs will drive profitability.”
When it comes to the ad-backed tier of Disney+, Chapek said “we are expecting a very positive reaction from advertisers overall. They have been asking for this for years.”
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