The first quarter of 2024 for Disney+ was very good as the platform gained 6.3 million new subscribers between January and March. But above all, it became profitable for the first time in its history by recording an operating profit of $47 million.
The Walt Disney Company released its financial results this week, including those of Disney+. And the streaming platform is off to a good start to the year by gaining 6.3 million subscribers during the first quarter of 2024. As of March 31, 2024, Disney+ has 117.6 million subscribers worldwide, which exceeds analyst forecasts. .
This jump is notably due to the strong growth of Disney+ in the United States, whose number of subscribers jumped 17% to reach 54 million paying subscribers. It must be said that the group signed an agreement with Charter to offer Disney+ to certain cable customers.
Disney+ is finally profitable
But that’s not the only good news for the streaming platform. Indeed, Disney+ became profitable for the first time in its history in the first quarter of 2024.
The Walt Disney Company’s streaming arm — including Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ — generated $47 million in operating profit between January and March, a huge jump from the same period last year. last during which it recorded operating losses of $587 million.
If Disney+ has become profitable, it is thanks to the sharp increase in the number of subscribers but also, and above all, to the increase in average revenue per subscriber. In the United States, it increased by 6% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023 to reach $7.28 per subscriber per month.
It must be said that the platform increased its prices in several markets at the end of 2023, which had repercussions in the fourth quarter of 2023 but especially in the first quarter of this year.
Towards the end of password sharing
And Disney+ should continue its momentum throughout the year since the platform will begin to implement restrictions on password sharing next month.
Its competitor Netflix has been doing this for more than a year and this strategy has borne fruit since the streaming giant has seen its number of subscribers and its average revenue per subscriber significantly increase. Disney+ therefore wants to take advantage of this success by gradually implementing this strategy in several of its markets until the sharing of passwords is banned everywhere in the world by September.
