Disney boss Bob Iger and his top management team have their work cut out for them in 2014 following the box office flops of Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny, The Marvels and now Wish and with its video streaming service Disney+ that has a whopping 14 million subscribers less than last year.
Although Disney+ returned to growth in the fourth quarter of the
company's fiscal year, the subscriber count of the streaming giant is still far
below where it was just a year ago.
According to data
presented by OnlyAccounts.io, Disney+ had 150.2 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of the company's 2023 financial year - 14 million less than last year.
Disney+ launched in 2019 and hit 100 million subscribers worldwide two years later.
The streamer launched in South Africa in May 2022 where it's competing with the likes of MultiChoice's Showmax getting a retool-relaunch in February 2023, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+.
South Africa is still the only country in sub-Saharan Africa where Disney+ is available.
What was quite impressive about Disney+'s 100 million subs, was that it took the market leader Netflix roughly a decade to reach this milestone, despite navigating a much
less competitive market them.
Still, the Covid-19 pandemic played a massive role in
Disney reaching its goal so far ahead of schedule, as all streaming giants
profited from lockdowns.
According to Statista and
the official Disney company data, Disney+ had 26.5 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2020.
A year later, this figure surged to almost 95 million and continued rising. By
the end of its 2022 financial year, Disney's streaming service hit a whopping 164.2 million
subscribers, the highest number to date.
But - and there's always a but - things significantly changed this
year, with 14 million people cancelling their subscriptions to Disney+.
Most of that drop came
from the Indian brand Disney+ Hotstar, which reported massive subscriber
losses. In its earnings report for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year which
ended 30 September, Disney reported a 2.8 million subscriber drop on its
streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar, pushing the total subscriber loss for the
year to 23.8 million.
Disney's loss of subscribers in the Indian market is likely
due to the streaming service losing the rights to the Indian Premier League and
the non-renewal of its content deal with HBO.
And while the streaming
giant lost 14 million subscribers, its average monthly revenue per user (ARPU) increased this year - which is a good thing.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, Disney+ Core generated an
average monthly revenue of $6.7 (R125.29) per paying subscriber, up from the $6.47 (R121) reported in the second quarter.
Disney+ Hotstar's average
revenue per subscriber increased from $0.59 to $0.70 in this period due to a
lower mix of wholesale subscribers and higher advertising revenue.
