The online video service was launched in the USA in November 2019 and is now available in 59 countries.
US entertainment giant Walt Disney's streaming service has passed 100 million paying subscribers. CEO Bob Chapek spoke at the virtual shareholders' meeting on Tuesday of an “enormous success” – Disney + had reached this milestone in just 16 months.
The online video service was launched in the US in November 2019 and is now available in 59 countries. Investors were unimpressed by the numbers, the share reacted cautiously in US stock market trading and was recently in the red.
Competitive streaming market
So far, Disney's streaming business is not generating any profits, and despite the impressive growth, the gap to market leader Netflix remains large. The streaming pioneer had also grown strongly in the pandemic and had almost 204 million paying users at the end of the year.
Netflix has been around for much longer and is represented in significantly more countries, but the chase to catch up is hardly likely to be easier for Disney in the future. Netflix tries to keep the competition at a distance with an enormous production budget.
In addition, the strong start of Disney + was largely due to low prices and limited temptation offers. In addition to the service under its own brand, Disney also operates the steaming services Hulu and ESPN +.
