By Hayden Cunningham – The Postmillennial
The Walt Disney Company’s streaming services suffered significant losses in the final months of 2024, losing hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
In the last three months of 2024, which is the first quarter of its 2025 fiscal year, Disney saw a loss of 700,000 subscribers for its streaming service Disney+. ESPN+ also experienced a 700,000 subscriber loss during the same period. Meanwhile, Hulu saw an increase of 1.6 million subscribers, bringing its total to 53.6 million.
Despite the subscriber losses, Disney remained profitable, reporting $24.69 billion in revenue for the quarter, a 5 percent increase year over year and surpassing analysts’ expectations, according to Variety. The company’s streaming business saw its second straight profitable quarter, with an operating income of $293 million with revenue increasing to $6.07 billion.
“Our results this quarter demonstrate Disney’s creative and financial strength as we advanced the strategic initiatives set in motion over the past two years,” said Disney CEO Bob Iger in a statement. “Overall, this quarter proved to be a strong start to the fiscal year, and we remain confident in our strategy for continued growth.”
Iger further told analysts on an earnings call, “We actually are very pleased with where we are sub-wise for Disney+ and Hulu. As you know, we took prices up significantly fairly recently, and expected the churn would be significantly greater. And it turned out, we delivered numbers that were better than we had expected.”
Iger also noted that the Disney+ and Hulu price-discounted bundle “actually regrew subs modestly in the quarter.” He explained that the company is working to enhance its streaming platforms, including by cracking down on password sharing to “lower churn” and grow subscriptions.
This will be the last quarter in which Disney publicly reports financial details for its combined streaming businesses, which include Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu.