Disney Reports Near-Doubling Of Disney+ Subscribers In Q2 Earnings Report

Disney saw a sizeable jump in subscribers to its Disney+ streaming service for its third quarter, which ended July 3. According to earnings results, the number of subscribers went from 57.5 million in June 2020 to 116 million in July 2021.

Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Chapek praised the growth of the company.

“[O]ur direct-to-consumer business is performing very well, with a total of nearly 174 million subscriptions across Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu at the end of the quarter, and a host of new content coming to the platforms,” he said in a statement.

The direct-to-consumer (D2C) revenues for the quarter were up 57 percent, hitting $4.3 billion, according to results. Meanwhile the operating loss fell from $0.6 billion to $0.3 billion, which the company credited to improved results at Hulu offsetting the higher loss at Disney+.

The higher loss at Disney+ happened because of the higher costs for programming, production, marketing and technology, results showed. But that was also countered partially by a spike in subscription revenue and premier access revenue for the movie “Cruella.” The higher subscription revenue showed the subscriber growth, and the boosts in costs showed how the Disney+ model is expanding, including launches in new places.

Meanwhile, streaming rival Netflix also released earnings, which were somewhat uneven, PYMNTS reported. They showed the company a bit ahead of predictions on top-line revenue growth, but behind predictions on bottom-line earnings results.

Read more: Netflix Attributes Mixed Q2 Result To ‘Choppiness In Our Growth’ Created By COVID

The company’s Q2 shareholder letter said the unprecedented context of the pandemic had driven the rocky waves the company had seen, with distortions to the year-over-year growth. The pandemic drove a large amount of growth as people had less to do because of the virus making it dangerous to go into public social situations, so they turned to streaming and TV and movies.