Disney Plus adds around 8 million new subscribers as Netflix struggles

During the first three months of 2022, Disney added 7.9 million new subscribers to its Disney Plus streaming service, the company announced in its second-quarter earnings report on Wednesday. The total is around 87.6 million worldwide, excluding the 50.1 million Disney Plus Hotstar subscribers internationally. In the US and Canada alone, now Disney Plus has 7.1 million more subscribers than a year ago, with 44.4 million.

Disney also said the number of subscribers for all of its streaming offerings, including Hulu and ESPN Plus, had risen to more than 205 million, up from the 196.4 million it reported in January.

That's better news than Netflix had recently. Last month, the streaming company reported that it had lost 200,000 subscribers compared to the previous quarter, its first drop in more than a decade. It's also faster growth than HBO and HBO Max, which reported 3 million new subscribers last quarter (with about 77 million total customers, HBO still lags far behind Disney). It's also worth noting that Netflix still has around 222 million subscribers.

Disney also reports that it's earning more per Disney Plus subscriber than before, at least in the US. Where its average monthly income per paid subscriber used to be $6.01, it's now at $6.32. Disney says this is due to "an increase in retail prices and a lower mix of wholesale subscribers."

Despite this, Disney Plus is actually losing money from the company at a higher rate than before. Disney says this is due to higher production, advertising and technology costs. Those costs seem unlikely to come down, and raising prices, as Netflix did, could stunt subscriber growth. All of that taken together makes it obvious why Disney is looking to create an ad-supported level sooner rather than later.