The streaming industry is cut-throat, with platforms competing daily for viewers, new subscribers and exclusive content. And with more choice than ever before on where to spend their dollars, users aren’t afraid to jump ship to a rival streaming service, either. That seems to be the case with Disney+, which revealed it lost several million subscribers for the second quarter in a row.
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Revenue Up, Subscribers Down
In a quarterly earnings statement, The Walt Disney Company updated its shareholders on the company’s financial situation. Among other services, it shows that the Disney+ streaming platform lost 4 million subscribers in the first quarter of the year. At the end of 2022, Disney+ saw a drop of 2.4 million subscribers to end the quarter with 161.8 million global paying subscribers. But that declined to 157.8 million by April of this year, with Disney+ Hotstar shedding around 8 percent of its subscribers.
However, it’s not all bad news for Disney, as the average revenue per subscriber increased. This was partly due to an increase in the monthly subscription fee, pushing the platform’s average monthly revenue up by 20 percent to end the quarter at $7.14 per user in the U.S. and Canada. “Higher subscription revenue was attributable to subscriber growth and increases in retail pricing, partially offset by an unfavorable foreign exchange impact,” Disney said in the earnings call.
Disney+ isn’t the only streaming service that’s bleeding subscribers. According to recent market analysts, Netflix lost more than a million Spanish users in the first three months of 2023. This was a direct result of Netflix’s somewhat controversial password-sharing policy. The new policy is charging users $6 more for sharing their credentials.
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Image credit: Unsplash
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