Disney yesterday announced aggressive plans to boost its Disney+ streaming service, and the company’s subscriber total may soon eclipse the subscriber totals for Netflix.
Courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures
Adelia Cellini Linecker for Investor’s Business Daily:
At an investor day late Thursday, CEO Bob Chapek said Disney+ subscribers were at 86.8 million as of Dec. 2. That’s up from 73.7 million in early October and 60.5 million in early August.
Including Disney+, Hotstar, Hulu and ESPN+, the company’s streaming services have more than 137 million subscribers. In 2021, Disney+ will expand to Eastern Europe, South Korea, Hong Kong and other markets.
The company now expects to have 230 million-260 million Disney+ subscribers by 2024, up from its prior estimate of 60 million-90 million for the same time frame, with global subscriptions across all services reaching 300 million-350 million. By comparison, Netflix (NFLX) has 195.15 million subscribers.
MacDailyNews Take: With oodles of Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, and more exclusive releases coming to Disney+ in the next few years, Netflix is facing overwhelming competition now. The easy days are over for Netflix. Competition among multiple strong services will likely work its magic to keep monthly prices down for consumers, too.
Netflix changed how the world worked with a brand new idea that had never been financially successful before. Disney’s power comes from just owning everything. I’ll be sad if power beats innovation yet again.
Maybe innovative at a point in time, but Netflix is a PERFECT example of how subscriptions can lull to sleep, both the company and the attached consumers. Netflix has lost their moat.
I don’t disagree with the power/innovation point…I just don’t think the “i” word applies at this time.
Netflix raised the subscription price again by $1. I don’t find this justified. It’s quantity over quality at the moment. Therefore, I am pausing Netflix for a few months and will try D+. I will keep AppleTV+ because 80 % of its content is absolutely great and the price is alright.
Netflix was always an interloper who found a loophole to stream others’ IP for cheaper than they inherently were.
What loophole? They had to get everyone’s permission for a brand new idea, and then invest their own money and future into it. And they have plenty of interesting new content, IMHO. All the content that Disney is attracting people with are recent purchases of proven names – Star Wars and Marvel. And the Star Wars name has NOT gained value under Disney’s use.
Disney+ is pretty much “The Mandolorian and that other stuff”
This is the way.
Disney is doing with Star Wars on TV what CBS only wishes it could do with Star Trek.
I’d say that CBS All Access, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime, and new kid on the block HBO Max are the new must-see TV, Netflix in danger of becoming irrelevant. In any case, too much TV, too much money, too much fragmentation. Apple should offer a true a la carte package, and no, not now nor will Ever be interested in “arcade.”
Ashoka Tano is bigger than that stupid mouse.
Netflix would still be dominant if they didn’t insist on peddling in child porn films.
if you don’t have kids, then Disney plus has nothing of interest. No way it dominates streaming.
Coming from someone that has obviously never watch a moment of Disney+ or doesn’t give a rip about most of their content and would rather watch Netflix for more..
Educate yourself on what content Disney owns before you say something that silly. Ever watched sports? ESPN? Hulu? Hell, they would own all of sports if they didn’t have to sell off the Fox Sports. They would control it all. They own more content than anyone and believe it or not, “content is king” and I’m not talking about cartoons and kids stuff.
I have tried most of the services, from Starz to Netflix to Britbox to Hulu to just about everything else. The one with the most quality movies and series, and least crap, HBO Max.
Bob Igers book stated that he always thought Apple and Disney would be one company some day. Steve Jobs wife is the largest individual shareholder of Disney. Looks increasing like Disney Plus could be a standalone sms spunoff from the parks division to get a much higher multiple. Would not surprise me that If that were to happen Apple would purchase Disney Plus for Apple TV plus.