Disney + Now Has 164.2 Million Customers, But Revenue Is Not In Accordance With Expenditure

JAKARTA - Towards the end of 2022 is a good moment for Disney+ as it managed to add 12 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter (Q4), with total subscribers up to 164.2 million.

The company is likely to be happy with the upgrade, considering they only expect to add 9.5 million new subscribers.

Two other services that were still in one parent company during the last quarter also experienced an increase in subscribers, where ESPN jumped from 22.8 million to 24.3 million, while Hulu rose one million to 47.2 million.

The total number of these three services is 235.7 million, up from 221 million in the third quarter. It also beats the company's expected figure of 233.8 million.

Disney+ still has a long way to go before reaching Netflix and its 223.09 million subscribers. It's the second straight quarter where Disney recorded a higher overall number than Netflix.

Even so, Netflix argues that as Disney combines subscriptions with subscribers, it's like one person can count as three subscribers if they have Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN subscriptions.

Unfortunately, Disney should also delay its happiness, because even though there is customer growth, it does not mean that the company's revenue is coming according to expectations.

Launching TechCrunch, Thursday, November 10, Disney is expected to increase revenue by 15 percent year-on-year (YoY) by shareholders to US$21.3 billion equivalent to Rp334 trillion, but Disney only scored US$20.15 equivalent to Rp315 trillion over the year ended October 1, up 9 percent compared to the same quarter the previous year.

However, Disney is not afraid of this. They now plan to find other ways to attract customers, where they plan to launch an ad-supported level on Disney+ that lowers subscription prices from $10.99 to IDR 172 thousand per month to 7.99 US dollars equivalent to IDR 125 thousand.

It will also offer a package that combines Disney+, ESPN, and Hulu with ads. Disney+ is also testing a new feature that allows customers to buy Star Wars, Marvel, Disney Animation Studios, and Pixar merchandise directly from certain film, serial, and short film details pages.