All’s well that ends well — but maybe not for Disney (DIS) that had a slower than expected earnings release for its last quarter of its fiscal year ending October (Q4).
The media conglomerate recorded $4.12 in revenues per subscriber for its streaming platform Disney+, a 9% YoY decrease. Revenues for the company as a whole reached $18.5b, missing analysts’ expectations by $0.3b but rising by 26% YoY. Its parks segment, in particular, saw a 99.4% YoY increase to $5.5b, as economies reopened globally. As a result Disney’s stock was down by 7% yesterday.
The metric on everyone’s mind though, Disney+ subscribers, saw an uptick of 2.1 million subscribers but was 7.3 million below what Wall Street was expecting. Although Disney’s CEO Bob Iger mentioned that reaching the goal of 260 million subscribers by 2024 might become hard, the count could pick up by Q2 2022 as a large pipeline of content is set to hit screens in the near term.
Why it matters
Disney’s obsession with subscriber count is warranted — it’s out there battling for screen time against veterans like Netflix (NFLX), HBO Max, and Amazon Prime. Unlike Netflix and Amazon, it’s also got a smaller library, making the next few months crucial to see if more content = more subscribers.
