Disney+ hits 118.1M subscribers in two years as growth slows to crawl

Last updated 3 years ago

Disney+ notched 118.1 million subscribers during the third quarter of 2021, Disney said in an earnings report on Wednesday, with the results representing the slowest sequential growth for the streaming service since its launch in 2019.

The 118.1 million subscriber figure was recorded on Oct. 2 and is up about 2.1 million people from the prior quarter, Disney said in its earnings release (PDF link).

Disney CEO Bob Chapek in September warned of a slowdown in growth due to COVID-19 and set expectations of an increase in the "low single-digit millions" from the previous three-month period. Despite the notice, Wall Street analysts tipped Disney+ to touch 126.2 million in the most recent quarter, reports Variety.

Disney's streaming service has enjoyed massive success since launching in November 2019, with subscriber numbers growing leaps and bounds to reach 100 million in just 16 months. Today's reported result suggests momentum might be slowing.

Disney+ had 94.9 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 8 million subscribers from the prior quarter. Another 8.7 million subscribers were added in the first quarter of 2021, with growth rates returning to form in August when the service gained 13 million subscribers to hit a total of 116 million.

Average monthly revenue per paid user dipped to $4.16, down from $4.62 in the year-ago quarter. The change was attributed in part to a higher mix of Disney+ Hotstar subscribers.

"As we celebrate the two-year anniversary of Disney+, we're extremely pleased with the success of our streaming business, with 179 million total subscriptions across our DTC portfolio at the end of fiscal 2021 and 60% subscriber growth year-over-year for Disney+," Chapek said in a prepared statement. "We continue to manage our DTC business for the long-term, and are confident that our high-quality entertainment and expansion into additional markets worldwide will enable us to further grow our streaming platforms globally."

As Variety notes, Disney is looking to boost subscriber numbers with a year-end "Disney Plus Day" promotion that coincides with the product's second anniversary. The weeklong event, which began on Monday, includes a number of premieres and a limited-time offer that nets new and existing customers one month of service for $1.99.

Beyond Disney+, Disney saw growth across its other streaming products, with ESPN+ rising to 17.1 million subscribers from 10.3 million in 2020. Hulu moved up to 43.8 million from 36.6 million over the same period.

Apple TV+, Apple's streaming service, launched at around the same time as Disney+ but has not seen the same level of success. Apple has not released official statistics, but third-party estimates put the service at 40 million subscribers at the end of 2020. A substantial portion of those subscribers are on free one-year trials gained through the purchase of an eligible device.

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10 Comments

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

About 3 years ago

The problem with Disney+ is that once you’ve watched all the Marvel, Star Wars, and Mickey Mouse content for the umpteenth time what’s left. Critics of Apple TV+ are always yammering about the lack of a big catalog. Well, Disney+ has a huge catalog that most have now seen over the decades. So what’s new about it?

Judging Apple TV+’s success by how many subscribers it has is like comparing Android numbers to iOS numbers, or the speed in GHz of a CPU. It’s really all about the actual performance or quality.

But just like a certain cadre here relies on technical specs alone to ‘judge’ the success of a system, the critics count the number of shows available on Apple TV+ and compare them to the useless crap thats available on Amazon Prime Video, for example.

Xed 2876 comments · 4 Years

About 3 years ago

lkrupp said:

The problem with Disney+ is that once you’ve watched all the Marvel, Star Wars, and Mickey Mouse content for the umpteenth time what’s left. Critics of Apple TV+ are always yammering about the lack of a big catalog. Well, Disney+ has a huge catalog that most have now seen over the decades. So what’s new about it?

What? You absolutely haven't come close to watching all of their content. Additionally, giving AppleTV+ and Disney a quick perusing I'd say that Disney has considerably more new original content than Apple. You may not like Disney's content, but that's beside the point with you claiming they have nothing new to watch.

rmoo 30 comments · 3 Years

About 3 years ago

lkrupp said:

The problem with Disney+ is that once you’ve watched all the Marvel, Star Wars, and Mickey Mouse content for the umpteenth time what’s left. Critics of Apple TV+ are always yammering about the lack of a big catalog. Well, Disney+ has a huge catalog that most have now seen over the decades. So what’s new about it?

Judging Apple TV+’s success by how many subscribers it has is like comparing Android numbers to iOS numbers, or the speed in GHz of a CPU. It’s really all about the actual performance or quality.

But just like a certain cadre here relies on technical specs alone to ‘judge’ the success of a system, the critics count the number of shows available on Apple TV+ and compare them to the useless crap thats available on Amazon Prime Video, for example.

Disney/Marvel/Star Wars/Pixar and the Disney Channel create content for themselves first which then gets farmed out to Disney+. As they aren't going anywhere, Disney+ can leverage them to add new content a lot faster than Apple TV+ can before originals even enter the picture. Also those theatrical movies and Disney channel cable shows are already profitable from theater grosses, cable fees and adevertising revenue before they even hit Disney+. Meanwhile, subscriber revenue will be the only way that Apple recoups the costs for a movies and TV series that they spend hundreds of millions developing and producing. And even comparing originals, for a lot of those Disney+ can just do sequels, live adaptations and remakes of their old movies and TV shows. That puts them in a much stronger position than the other streaming services. Take sector leader Netflix: stuck between giving huge paychecks to has-been actors and directors who can't get movie studios to fund their projects anymore - so that loyal fans of this talent who watched their products in theaters in the 90s and 00s will watch their new streaming projects - and making western remakes of anime. Which model is more likely to still be viable 15 years from now when there won't be any more iconic anime series to adapt and fans of Adam Sandler and Will Smith tire of third rate projects?

Also, the Android vs iOS argument makes no sense for two reasons. First, for hardware, yes it is better to sell 10 million $1000 MacBooks and get a $400 margin off each ($4 billion) than it is to sell 100 million $200 Chromebooks and get a $20 margin off each ($2 billion, with a lot of that given back in returns and service warranty claims due to cheap construction and parts). But with a service where subscriptions are the only revenue source, yes 100 million subscribers at $9.99 a month beats 10 million.

Second, no matter what Daniel Eran Dilger claims, the idea that Google's model of prioritizing market share over unit sales when they sell almost no hardware has been anything else but a massive success for Google is absurd. Compare Google's quarterly revenue before Android really took off to their quarterly revenue now: $9.7 billion 3Q 2011 to more than $65 billion 3Q 2021. The reason for more than 650% revenue growth in 10 years? Chrome was already the dominant PC browser by 2011, and PC sales generally declined in that time anyway. So the main reason: ad revenue from those 3 billion active Android devices. And if you must discuss hardware, it is why Google still makes Android devices despite selling less than 10 million a year while LG and HTC - despite each having sold hundreds of millions of such devices - don't.

Yes, Apple has spent the last 40 years proving that market share isn't the only thing. But Microsoft - who like Google makes little on hardware - has spent an equal amount of time proving that it is indeed a thing ... something that can definitely be leveraged for massive profits. Google came along and improved Microsoft's model by leveraging a platform that is free to manufacturers and services that are free to end users to grow market share large and fast enough to win a 3 front war against Yahoo, Apple AND Microsoft despite starting out with much less revenue than all 3 of them (yes, even Yahoo). And even in the hardware game, Samsung spent the early Android era aggressively focusing on growth even as media and industry critics were laughing at them, calling the phones and tablets that they were spamming the market with tacky plastic gimmicks. But absolutely no one laughs at them now. Why? Chinese firms aside, they are the only competition in mobile that Apple has left.

elijahg 2823 comments · 18 Years

About 3 years ago

lkrupp said:

The problem with Disney+ is that once you’ve watched all the Marvel, Star Wars, and Mickey Mouse content for the umpteenth time what’s left. Critics of Apple TV+ are always yammering about the lack of a big catalog. Well, Disney+ has a huge catalog that most have now seen over the decades. So what’s new about it?

Judging Apple TV+’s success by how many subscribers it has is like comparing Android numbers to iOS numbers, or the speed in GHz of a CPU. It’s really all about the actual performance or quality.

But just like a certain cadre here relies on technical specs alone to ‘judge’ the success of a system, the critics count the number of shows available on Apple TV+ and compare them to the useless crap thats available on Amazon Prime Video, for example.

A certain cadre here relies on profit as a total percentage of the market to tout Apple's success. But that doesn't stack up too well with AppleTV+. Profit for AppleTV+ is almost certainly in the negative billions. It's total madness. A report in January estimated 62% of AppleTV+ users are on a free trial, and the estimated income is just $76m, with a budget of $6bn in 2019. It's reported too that Apple spent more on the Morning Show than HBO did on the final season of Game of Thrones... Cook appears to be under the impression that the more money he throws at AppleTV+ the more success it will have, but it doesn't work like that. Money does not necessarily mean a good show will be produced. Apple was convinced See would be a hit, but its ratings are pretty average.

That's not to say it's bad, some of the AppleTV+ shows are okay, - but they're just that: "okay". There's no mega hit that everyone's talking about. No one is subbing AppleTV+ just to watch a single blowout show. You can slate Netflix/Prime/Disney+ as much as you want to feel better about the situation, but the reality is AppleTV+ is not doing too well. If AppleTV was a product, Cook would have ditched it as fast as they did the HomePod - but he hasn't, so I think it's his attempt entering a new category, with zero Jobsian influence. He hopes it'll be his legacy, in other words.

tmay 6455 comments · 11 Years

About 3 years ago

elijahg said:

lkrupp said:

The problem with Disney+ is that once you’ve watched all the Marvel, Star Wars, and Mickey Mouse content for the umpteenth time what’s left. Critics of Apple TV+ are always yammering about the lack of a big catalog. Well, Disney+ has a huge catalog that most have now seen over the decades. So what’s new about it?

Judging Apple TV+’s success by how many subscribers it has is like comparing Android numbers to iOS numbers, or the speed in GHz of a CPU. It’s really all about the actual performance or quality.

But just like a certain cadre here relies on technical specs alone to ‘judge’ the success of a system, the critics count the number of shows available on Apple TV+ and compare them to the useless crap thats available on Amazon Prime Video, for example.

A certain cadre here relies on profit as a total percentage of the market to tout Apple's success. But Apple's profit on AppleTV+ is almost certainly in the negative billions. It's total madness. A report in January estimated 62% of AppleTV+ users are on a free trial, and the estimated income is just $76m. It's reported too that Apple spent more on the Morning Show than HBO did on the final season of Game of Thrones... Cook appears to be under the impression that the more money he throws at AppleTV+ the more success it will have, but it doesn't work like that. Money does not necessarily mean a good show will be produced. Apple was convinced See would be a hit, but its ratings are pretty average.

That's not to say it's bad, some of the AppleTV+ shows are okay, - but they're just that: "okay". There's no mega hit that everyone's talking about. No one is subbing AppleTV+ just to watch a single blowout show. You can slate Netflix/Prime/Disney+ as much as you want to feel better about the situation, but the reality is AppleTV+ is not doing too well. If AppleTV was a product, Cook would have ditched it as fast as they did the HomePod - but he hasn't, so I think it's his attempt entering a new category, with zero Jobsian influence. He hopes it'll be his legacy, in other words.

elijahg said:

lkrupp said:

The problem with Disney+ is that once you’ve watched all the Marvel, Star Wars, and Mickey Mouse content for the umpteenth time what’s left. Critics of Apple TV+ are always yammering about the lack of a big catalog. Well, Disney+ has a huge catalog that most have now seen over the decades. So what’s new about it?

Judging Apple TV+’s success by how many subscribers it has is like comparing Android numbers to iOS numbers, or the speed in GHz of a CPU. It’s really all about the actual performance or quality.

But just like a certain cadre here relies on technical specs alone to ‘judge’ the success of a system, the critics count the number of shows available on Apple TV+ and compare them to the useless crap thats available on Amazon Prime Video, for example.

A certain cadre here relies on profit as a total percentage of the market to tout Apple's success. But Apple's profit on AppleTV+ is almost certainly in the negative billions. It's total madness. A report in January estimated 62% of AppleTV+ users are on a free trial, and the estimated income is just $76m. It's reported too that Apple spent more on the Morning Show than HBO did on the final season of Game of Thrones... Cook appears to be under the impression that the more money he throws at AppleTV+ the more success it will have, but it doesn't work like that. Money does not necessarily mean a good show will be produced. Apple was convinced See would be a hit, but its ratings are pretty average.

That's not to say it's bad, some of the AppleTV+ shows are okay, - but they're just that: "okay". There's no mega hit that everyone's talking about. No one is subbing AppleTV+ just to watch a single blowout show. You can slate Netflix/Prime/Disney+ as much as you want to feel better about the situation, but the reality is AppleTV+ is not doing too well. If AppleTV was a product, Cook would have ditched it as fast as they did the HomePod - but he hasn't, so I think it's his attempt entering a new category, with zero Jobsian influence. He hopes it'll be his legacy, in other words.

The reality is that AppleTV+ is rapidly evolving into a full fledged, and competitive, streaming service, and has done so without any "filler" licensed from studio libraries.

Given that AppleTV+ is barely 2 years old, I'm not disappointed in its growth at all, and am looking forward to "The Shrink Next Door", starting late tomorrow, and the third season of "For All Mankind" early next year. I wouldn't be too concerned about profitability for the near term, given, for example, how long it took Netflix, whose service launched in 2007, to see any real profits in streaming. It's another service that Apple has to strengthen its ecosystem.

Apple has done this with a much more curated collection of films and series that reminds me of HBO's quality.

For the record, Apple didn't "ditch" the HomePod. The HomePod Mini was an evolution of that, and as it is less costly, will sell in much higher quantities.