Although Disney’s flagship streaming service, Disney+, returned to growth in the fourth quarter of the company’s fiscal year, the subscriber count of the streaming giant is still far below where it was a year ago. According to data presented by OnlyAccounts.io, Disney+ had 150.2 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of the company’s FY 2023, or 14 million less than last year.
Most of the Subscriber Drop Came from the Indian Brand Disney+ Hotstar
The Walt Disney Company launched its streaming service in 2019. Two years later, Disney+ hit 100 million subscribers worldwide, far above the initially set goal of 60 to 90 million users by 2024. What`s even more impressive, it took the market leader Netflix roughly a decade to reach this milestone, despite navigating a much less competitive market then. Still, the pandemic played a massive role in Disney reaching its goal so far ahead of schedule, as all streaming giants profited from lockdowns.
According to Statista and the official company data, Disney+ had 26.5 million subscribers in Q1 2020. A year later, this figure surged to almost 95 million and continued rising. By the end of FY 2022, Disney’s streaming service hit a whopping 164.2 million subscribers, the highest number to date. But things significantly changed this year, with 14 million people canceling their subscriptions to Disney+.
Most of that drop came from the Indian brand Disney+ Hotstar, which reported massive subscriber losses. In its earnings report for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, which ended September 30, Disney reported a 2.8 million subscriber drop on its streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar, pushing the total subscriber loss for the year to 23.8 million. Disney’s loss of subscribers in the Indian market is likely due to the streaming service losing the rights to the Indian Premier League and the non-renewal of its content deal with HBO.
The Number of Subscribers Drops, but the Average Monthly Revenue Per User Grows
And while the streaming giant lost 14 million subscribers, its average monthly revenue per user increased this year. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Disney+ Core generated an average monthly revenue of $6.7 per paying subscriber, up from the $6.47 reported in Q2.
Disney+ Hotstar’s average revenue per subscriber increased from $0.59 to $0.70 in this period due to a lower mix of wholesale subscribers and higher advertising revenue.
