Disney+ Loses MILLIONS of Subscribers

In 2019, just a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down, Disney launched its very own streaming platform — Disney+. Disney+ is the ultimate platform for everything Disney, Marvel, LucasFilm, Pixar, and more. Not only can Disney fans fund classic movies like The Sword in the Stone and Cinderella, but they can find a ton of original content. This includes hit shows like The Imagineering Story, The Mandalorian, Loki, WandaVision, Muppets Now, and so much more.

Disney+ was an instant hit, amassing millions of subscribers very quickly. Things were looking very positive, even though Disney was upfront about the fact that its streaming platform would not see profits until 2024.

However, for the second quarter in a row, Disney has shared that Disney+ has lost millions of subscribers. The second straight loss comes after Disney+ subscribers saw a massive price jump in monthly and yearly costs. The cost jumped when Disney announced that they would be introducing an ad-based tier. The ad-based tier cost what the ad-free tier used to cost, and the ad-free tier saw a nearly 50% price increase.

According to Disney’s second-quarter fiscal earnings report, Disney+ lost 4 million subscribers in the first three months of 2023. Quarter one of 2023 saw a subscriber number of just over 160 million, so, with this drop, subscriber numbers now sit at 157.8 million. Disney CEO Bob Iger did admit during the Earnings Call that the drop in subscribers was due to the aggressive price increase in the ad-free tier. However, Iger is hoping to be able to get more people to subscribe to the ad-supported tier.

While a subscriber loss isn’t what Disney was hoping for, the news wasn’t all bad. Bob Iger and Disney CFO Christine McCarthy did announce that they were able to cut streaming losses by around 26%, which was around $400 million. Wall Street had estimated that the Disney+ subscriber numbers would be 163 million at the end of the quarter, so Disney missed those expectations.

Iger stressed that the company will work on bringing more and more people to the ad-supported tier as the months go on. He also insinuated that the company would be looking at possibly not raising the prices of Disney+ if the subscriber count continued to increase and hold steady.