August 11, 2022
Walt Disney reported a total of 221.1 million subscribers for its fiscal third quarter ended in June. The subscribers cover Disney+ (152 million), ESPN+ (22.8 million), and Hulu total including Live TV, at (46.2 million).
The new subscriber estimates mean Disney has now overtaken Netflix, which reported 220.67 million global subscribers after losing about 970,000 for the three months.
However, figures for Disney are expected to fall after the company failed to secure the cricket streaming rights in India, where much of the Disney+ subs are based.
Like other platforms, streaming services are suffering from declining subscriber numbers. Various reasons are necessarily responsible for the decline, some of which involve increased competition and inflation, which has forced many users to cut back on spending.
Netflix was hit by the decline as it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022 and forecast a higher loss of up to 2 million for the following quarter but managed to beat its decline forecast as it recorded only a loss of almost 1 million subscribers, which was seen in part as a victory.
Although the projected loss of 970,000 subscribers is better than expected the loss for Netflix is the largest loss in its history.
The sources for this piece include an article in DEADLINE.
