Disney+ attracts 28.6M subscribers in less than 3 months
Disney's new video streaming service, Disney+, now boasts more than 28 million paying subscribers after launching against market competitor Apple TV+ in November, the company revealed on Tuesday.
The figure was officially reported in Disney's quarterly earnings report as 26.5 million subscribers at the end of December, but CEO Bob Iger in an earnings conference call after the bell said the service hit 28.6 million as of Monday, according to The Verge.
Disney has leaned heavily on promotions to help push subscriber numbers, presenting new users with deals on annual subscriptions during the holiday shopping season, providing discounts for multi-year obligations and offering a year of free service to select Verizon customers. Apple, too, is dishing out free access to its streaming product, Apple TV+, to new iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and iPod touch owners.
Disney also notched increased subscriber numbers for Hulu and ESPN+, which jumped to 30.4 million and 6.6 million subscribers at the end of December, respectively. Those gains are in large part thanks to deal that bundled Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ for a monthly fee of $12.99, according to the report.
After a successful domestic launch, the entertainment giant is looking to fuel growth through international expansion. Disney plans to debut the service across Europe in March followed by a rolling global launch throughout 2020.
The news arrives a week after Apple conspicuously failed to mention Apple TV+ subscriber numbers in an earnings report for its first fiscal quarter of 2020. Apple CEO Tim Cook in a conference call last Tuesday had little to say about the service beyond noting it is off to a "rousing start," a vague metric he later clarified to be based on total subscribers.
Disney+ launched in November with a mountain of content, including access to Disney, Pixar, Marvel Universe, Star Wars and National Geographic movies and shows, as well as hotly anticipated originals like "The Mandalorian." The service notched more than 10 million subscribers in one day.
The figure was officially reported in Disney's quarterly earnings report as 26.5 million subscribers at the end of December, but CEO Bob Iger in an earnings conference call after the bell said the service hit 28.6 million as of Monday, according to The Verge.
Disney has leaned heavily on promotions to help push subscriber numbers, presenting new users with deals on annual subscriptions during the holiday shopping season, providing discounts for multi-year obligations and offering a year of free service to select Verizon customers. Apple, too, is dishing out free access to its streaming product, Apple TV+, to new iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and iPod touch owners.
Disney also notched increased subscriber numbers for Hulu and ESPN+, which jumped to 30.4 million and 6.6 million subscribers at the end of December, respectively. Those gains are in large part thanks to deal that bundled Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ for a monthly fee of $12.99, according to the report.
After a successful domestic launch, the entertainment giant is looking to fuel growth through international expansion. Disney plans to debut the service across Europe in March followed by a rolling global launch throughout 2020.
The news arrives a week after Apple conspicuously failed to mention Apple TV+ subscriber numbers in an earnings report for its first fiscal quarter of 2020. Apple CEO Tim Cook in a conference call last Tuesday had little to say about the service beyond noting it is off to a "rousing start," a vague metric he later clarified to be based on total subscribers.
Disney+ launched in November with a mountain of content, including access to Disney, Pixar, Marvel Universe, Star Wars and National Geographic movies and shows, as well as hotly anticipated originals like "The Mandalorian." The service notched more than 10 million subscribers in one day.
Comments
It's a shame there aren't others competing against Disney+ in this market. /s
Seriously, these services are not competing against each other... they're complimenting each other with original content. A subscriber only has to stick around for a month, binge as much as they can, and then cancel. Move to next streaming service... repeat.
tv+ being only $4.99 for a family subscription means that subscription may remain active long enough so that everyone in the family gets a chance to watch everything.
Still Apple should have bought someone with content...
Netflix has more diverse collections but they also add a lot of new ones every month (mix qualities) or Apple+ which only offers high quality production originals but add them regularly.
I guess it comes down to personal taste: do you like to watch your fav movie, the same movie, over and over OR do you like to watch interesting NEW shows every time you sit down?
It's not telling at all... It doesn't make much sense to report numbers when they don't equate to revenue earned. It's also a business tactic to not report numbers when you're entering a new market to keep competitors from knowing how well you are or aren't doing. Especially when you are the only new streaming service to start completely from scratch. Again, trying to compare apples to oranges. As if tv+ is going to fail if they don't get as many subscribers as any other service with a huge back catalog of content.
I have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Crave and Apple TV+
Netflix is full of crap (in Canada anyways) and slow to add descent shows. But still worth the $12 or whatever it costs.
Amazon Prime: This is actually the one we watch the most. Probably the best deal for the money.
Disney+: It's good. After a year thou... not sure how much will be left to watch.
Crave: If you wanna catch up on TV... not really worth the money thou, thinking of dropping.
Apple TV+: There is literally 1 show I might watch... out of what... 4 or 5 they include free. Everything else is pay pay pay - or attached to other services to make it look like they have a selection of programs. I was severely disappointed that they don't have anything really worth watching for a big streaming launch. If it wasn't free with my Apple TV purchase, no way would I pay for this service.
They are going to have to buy a lot of media from several studio's and include it in their subscription to make it work.
FWIW I dropped my own subscription to it this past month. Realized I had only watched it perhaps once/twice in the preceding 3 or 4 weeks. I'd run out of interesting content. I'll probably pick it up again for a month later this year and binge on what I do find interesting. Same as I do with CBS AllAccess.
l’d have a minor interest in The Mandalorian, but baby Yoda (big eye roll) isn’t a big enough draw for me to subscribe.
When Netflix captured season 6 of Star Wars The Clone Wars, that put me over the edge and I became a Netflix subscriber. So, when season 7 is released it’s going to be hard for me and my son to resist. But after watching season 7, and The Mandalorian too I suppose, I’ll be leaning toward cancellation. But then there’s that Obi Wan limited series ...
I’ve really enjoyed AppleTV+ so far. We’ll see how well the new upcoming content does over time.
Truth is other than Mandolorian, there isn’t a lot of content that I haven’t already seen.
i would pay for a month to see Mandoloriian but cancel afterwards.
I'd give you a thumbs up if I could.