Disney+ loses 700,000 subscribers, but has increased profits

A loss of customers expected

This first fiscal quarter, which ended on December 28, was generally very positive for the firm, with income announced at $ 24.69 billion, up 5 % compared to last year. The firm can notably thank the box of Vaiana 2which has generated more than a billion dollars at the world box office.

But in this beautiful blue sky nevertheless pointed out a sacred cloud, with the announcement of the loss of 700,000 subscribers for the Disney+streaming platform. More specifically, the service has lost 1.5 million subscribers worldwide, but has won 800,000 in American territory.

An important departure from customers which is explained in particular by The rise in the subscription prices in the fallwhich naturally caused the leak of many users.

The current CEO of Disney Bob Iger has nuanced this, explaining that this loss of subscribers was less than expected:

“We are very satisfied with our performance in terms of subscriptions for Disney+ and Hulu. As you know, we have increased our prices significantly quite recently and we expected the disabiation rate to be much higher. And and It turned out that we got better figures than we had planned. “

Indeed, if Disney+ went from 125.3 to 124.6 million subscribers worldwide, for its part the Hulu platform, another American streaming service with ESPN+, saw its number of customers climb 3 % to reach 53.6 million.

In total, Disney thus claims 157 million subscribers to its streaming services, a figure which is explained by the existence of Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+”packs”. For comparison, it is still behind Netflix (300 million) and Prime Video (around 200 million), but far ahead of Max (110.5 million).

In accumulated, this streaming branch of The Walt Disney Company therefore limits the breakage, especially since it begins (finally) to generate profit. The firm still plans to achieve its objective of $ 1 billion in operating income at the end of the 2025 fiscal year next September, thanks to the new subscription prices and advertising.

This decline in Disney+ subscribers should be absorbed in the coming months, and the number of customers start up in particular thanks to the recent promotion campaignwhich offered the subscription to only € 1.99/month instead of € 5.99.

In France, Disney+ has also just signed a major agreement with the French cinema and audiovisual, which will allow the platform to offer its films only 9 months after their name release, against 17 previously.

One more (and size) argument to attract new customers, facing Netflix, Video Prime, Canal+ and Max.