Disney Plus added almost 8 million new subscribers as Netflix struggles

Image: Disney

The company added 7.9 million new subscribers to its Disney Plus streaming service during the first three months of the year. There are around 88.6 million worldwide, including 50.1 million people who subscribe to Disney Plus Hotstar internationally. Disney Plus has more subscribers in the US and Canada than it did a year ago.

The company said that the number of subscribers for its streaming offerings had grown to 205 million, an increase from the 196.4 million it reported in January.

That's better news than what they had recently. The company reported last month that it had lost 200,000 subscribers in the last quarter, its first decline in over a decade. Last quarter, it reported 3 million new subscribers, which is more than the 2 million new subscribers reported by HBO. It's worth noting that there are around 222 million subscribers to the service.

CNN Plus folded within a few weeks, but all of these companies are doing better than that.

Disney reports that it is earning more per Disney Plus subscriber in the US than it had been before. The average monthly revenue per paid subscriber has gone up to $6.32. Disney says this is due to an increase in retail pricing and a lower mix of wholesale subscribers.

Disney Plus is losing money at a greater rate than it used to. Disney says it's because of higher costs for production, advertising and technology. Raising prices could cut off its subscriber growth, because those costs seem unlikely to go down. It's obvious that Disney is looking at creating an ad-supported tier sooner rather than later.

There is one last interesting note at the top of Disney's earnings. The company gave up a billion dollars in revenue to end a customer's license agreement for film and television content early in order to use the content on its own streaming services. The company was willing to take a big hit to get something onto Disney Plus, but the report doesn't specify which of Disney's customers this deal was with. Variety and The Hollywood Reporter speculated that this could be about the shows that were on the streaming service before they moved to Disney Plus.

Disney didn't respond immediately to the request for more information.