Disney+ Lost 700,000 Subscribers From October-December 2024

Disney+ lost 700,000 subscribers in the last quarter of 2024, largely due to price hikes and expiring promotions. Despite the decline, Disney's overall streaming business remained profitable, boosted by strong box office results from Moana 2 and Hulu's 1.6 million added subscribers. IndieWire reports: Not counting Disney+ Hotstar, the cheap Disney+ service in India, Disney+ now has 124.6 million subs. ESPN+ also lost 700,000 subs in the period. Hulu was the streaming highlight, adding 1.6 million subscribers; it now has 53.6 million. All told, the company's streaming business was profitable for its third-straight quarter. So it wasn't all bad -- or unexpected. "Our results this quarter demonstrate Disney's creative and financial strength as we advanced the strategic initiatives set in motion over the past two years," said Disney CEO Bob Iger. "In fiscal Q1 we saw outstanding box office performance from our studios, which had the top three movies of 2024; we further improved the profitability of our Entertainment DTC streaming businesses; we took an important step to advance ESPN's digital strategy by adding an ESPN tile on Disney+; and our Experiences segment demonstrated its enduring appeal as we continue investing strategically across the globe. Overall, this quarter proved to be a strong start to the fiscal year, and we remain confident in our strategy for continued growth."

Branding problem

[cowdung]

I see ads of Facebook of some horror flick on Disney+.

Disney used to mean "kid friendly." That's why they had brands like Miramax and Marvel for other sorts of movies.

But now they are just mixing it all and it must affect their brand.

Re:

[Powercntrl]

I'm fairly certain the streaming app has a ratings filter in the parental control settings. Sure, someone will probably chime in with the tired old refrain that Disney has gone "woke" and is now so full of inappropriate (from their perspective) all-ages content, that they wouldn't let their kids have access to the service at all.

As much as I hate agreeing with those folks, Disney probably should offer some form of parental control that is more granular, so if you're a parent who really does want your preci

Price hikes

[olsmeister]

Recent price hikes and the addition of ads in content that used to be ad-free are prompting a lot of people to take a second look at how many streaming services they subscribe to. Every time I turn around, another one is announcing a price hike.

Re:

[Powercntrl]

Netflix did a price hike recently too, so there's probably a bit of churn between services. There's almost always someone in the comments section who has to share that they rotate through different services after they're done watching the latest seasons of the previous streaming service's exclusives.

Disney+ might also not have the same kind of luck that Netflix did with cracking down on password sharing. It's entirely possible some of their subscribers really did make good on cancelling the service after

Re:

[ihavesaxwithcollies]

Disney+ might also not have the same kind of luck that Netflix did with cracking down on password sharing. It's entirely possible some of their subscribers really did make good on cancelling the service after they could no longer share it with friends or family members outside of the same household.

You got to stop with this propaganda, reason attributing nonsense that netflix fed you.

5.1 million subscribers that Netflix added during the July-September period represented a 42% decline from the total gained during the same

At the same time, though the company is not gaining as many new subscribers monthly

It worked so well they are just going to stop telling you about it in the future.

Netflix announced Thursday that it plans to stop sharing its quarterly subscriber numbers in 2025.

Re:Price hikes

[DamnOregonian]

I agree. It certainly is doing so for me.

Prices keep going up, and ads are being added.

It's literally the trajectory cable television took. Turns out that in the end, Corpos are gonna Corpo.

Re:

[olsmeister]

I also have noticed a proliferation of apps lately that let people identify and manage their subscriptions, and even find duplicates and help cancel unwanted ones. I wonder if that is having an impact on subscriber counts for these streaming services. Their favorite customer is probably someone who has set up autopay, and then forgotten they have the service.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

I wonder if that is having an impact on subscriber counts for these streaming services.

I hope so.

Unfortunately, instead of trying to get the customers they lost back, they'll just find a way to squeeze who's left to make up the difference, plus the growth required to keep the stock afloat.

Re:

[Baron_Yam]

It was always obvious to me - and I'm not claiming to be a genius or a prophet. They all wanted their vertical integration and to take over the entire market as the sole distributor of content.

At this point, I'm kind of surprised that we haven't seen independent studios going the standard e-commerce route. "Come to our website, pay to download and keep our movies / episodes for a reasonable price that goes direct to us!"

With a little bit of effort (that yes, would increase costs and thus prices), you coul

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

I agree entirely, and I think that is likely the final form of that kind of entertainment.
Prices would need to move considerably from the current digital rental prices, though.

Re:

[Baron_Yam]

I don't participate in that market so I don't know what the current rates are like, but I'm betting you could actually make a LOT more money selling people their own permanent copy than you can letting them access it via a streaming service with the attendant subscription.

You can buy Friends (admittedly something like 30 years old now) for ~$0.70/hr. I think for newer stuff you could easily charge a full buck, double that for something reasonably popular. And you might have to have a yet higher premium

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

$0.70/hr seems reasonable when context is ignored, but what is the current price of Friends?
If on Netflix, for example, its cost would be ~$0.02/hr without ads.
At that point, paying for streaming becomes attractive again, since I can now stream 35 shows for the price of 1.

Re:

[locater16]

Let's not be surprised here, were you expecting companies to subsidize overwhelming torrents of content for ludicrously cheap prices forever?

Re:

[rally2xs]

Agree about expense. I have the 3-service bundle for $32.95 and am in a pretty continuous evaluation mode of whether I think that is worth it or not.

I have been skeptical from the start of the "cord cutting" craze while replacing the cable with individual services such as this, Paramount, NetFlix, etc. I was suspicious I'd eventually be right back to my near-$300-per-month cable bill, but so far it looks like the streamers will have to try harder to get there. I think I'm in the low-100's including the

Who?

[Temkin]

(foreshadowing...)

Who? ...

Never heard of them...

(/foreshadowing)

I wonder if any were government subscriptions

[schwit1]

That the Biden admin knew would get cancelled when Trump's team came in

One ad away

[Varenthos]

I'm one ad away from dropping Disney+.

I subscribe to the ad-free tier, but recently they've announced that even the ad-free tier may start seeing ads. I'm just going to keep watching stuff on Disney+, and the first time I see an ad when I'm subscribed to ad-free, I'm gone! They're already pushing their luck with the price hikes and charging more for ad-free. If I start seeing ads, that's it.

Lost Subscribers, still made more $

[beadon]

While they lost subscribers, this was offset by the number of subscribers that stayed and kept paying through the price hike. So, yeah, "lost subscribers = bad", but from a business standpoint they gained somewhere near $1B in recurring revenue from the price hikes. The loss of these customers is not likely to be a deterrent.

Expect the DIS stock to rise in the coming months.

Re:

[beadon]

Here's a breakdown, it's very bullish.

https://www.investors.com/news... [investors.com]