In the fiscal year ended on September 30, 2024, The Walt Disney Company generated a total revenue of more than 91.36 billion U.S. dollars, up from 88.9 billion dollars a year earlier – an annual growth of around three percent.The Walt Disney Company reports its numbers based on fiscal years that end late September/early October of the corresponding calendar year. A media leviathan The Walt Disney Company controls several entertainment and media enterprises with a solid global presence. Arguably, its most famous facet remains Walt Disney Studios, which, as of late 2024, included benchmark companies such as 20th Century Studios, Marvel, Pixar, and Searchlight. Despite a 17 percent increase in box office revenue across the United States and Canada in 2024, that year's figure remained below the amount that Disney's studio division amassed in 2019, before the pandemic. Still, Disney alone accounted for a significant share of the box office revenue in the U.S. and Canada in 2024, driven by the success of "Frozen 2" and "Moana 2. Parks and recreation The holding is also known for its theme parks, which continued to bounce back from the coronavirus outbreak and its subsequent mobility restrictions. In 2023, the Magic Kingdom theme park, located at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, was the most visited Disney theme park location in the United States, with over 17.7 million visitors. Similarly, The Walt Disney Company's net income remained far from pre-pandemic standards. The figure amounted to about 4.97 billion dollars in the fiscal year 2024 – only a little more than one-third of the record-high 12.6-billion-dollar result seen in the fiscal year 2018.

This statistic presents leading U.S. media companies as of March 2015, ranked by their market values. The market value of satellite TV provider DirecTV amounted to 42.79 billion U.S. dollars. Here you can find the ranking for 2014. The leading U.S. media company in 2015 was The Walt Disney Company, which had a market value of 178.27 billion U.S. dollars. In 2015, the company registered global revenue of 52.47 billion U.S. dollars and this grew to 55.63 billion U.S. dollars in 2016. Thanks to the release of blockbusters such as "Finding Dory", "Zootopia", and "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", Disney had a 26.3 percent market share of the North American box office in 2016.

According to a report published by GEM Partners in February 2024, Netflix was the leading subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service in Japan in 2023. The service held a market share of 21.7 percent during that year. The estimated value of the domestic SVOD market amounted to 505.4 billion Japanese yen in 2023, up from 450.8 billion yen in 2022. According to the estimate, which was based on user fees paid to service operators and excluded advertising revenues, Netflix's market share slightly decreased compared to the previous year.

Netflix in Japan

Netflix entered the Japanese streaming market in September 2015, making it the first Asian market the company ventured into. According to news reports, Netflix expected Japan to be one of the slowest markets to penetrate due to the brand sensitivity of Japanese audiences. At the same time, this brand sensitivity was seen as a key to long-term payoffs once the service was embraced by Japanese consumers. In order to achieve this, the company secured long-term partnership deals with Japanese content creators throughout the years. Notably among them were several high-profile anime studios, whose products were also seen as a way to counter Disney. Other shows featuring domestic content include "The Naked Director," "Terrace House," and "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo." A lack of local content is considered to be one of the factors that hampered Hulu's initial uptake when it started its operations in Japan back in 2011.

The Japanese video streaming market

Video streaming has become an increasingly contested business in Japan as the market has shown strong growth figures in recent years. One major reason for this development can be found in the entry of several foreign services into the Japanese market, with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video both launching in 2015, DAZN following in 2016, and Disney joining the competition in early 2019. One source estimated that the combined market of SVOD, transaction video-on-demand (TVOD), and electronic sell-through (EST) more than tripled in size between 2015 and 2022. A strong growth can also be seen in the share of people who use SVOD services. As a result, the average time people spend on watching video-on-demand (VOD) per weekday has increased significantly compared to the mid-2010s.

This statistic displays the market share of leading gaming software publishers in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2016, by revenue. Electronic Arts had the highest market share with a total of 26.1 percent. Disney interactive studios had the lowest market share with 0.3 percent.

From 2016 to 2022, Comcast was the largest buyer of sports broadcast rights worldwide, with a spending share of 21.3 percent in 2022. Second was Disney/ESPN, followed by Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery. While the share of spending of these media companies declined or remained quite stable in recent years, DAZN's share of sports rights expenditures increased, reaching a 6.6 percent share in 2022.

The Shanghai Disneyland park is a feature of the Shanghai Disney Resort set up in Pudong, China, in 2011. Much like its other counterparts within the Disneyland global franchise, the Shanghai Disneyland park is a major attraction in China, having hosted about 14 million visitors in 2023. China's best-known theme parksAmusement in China comes in big sizes. One of the largest amusement parks in China since 2015 is the OCT East park in Shenzhen, spread over 13.5 thousand mu (over two thousand acres) of land. The Shanghai Disneyland park is a joint venture between the Shanghai Shendi Group and The Walt Disney Company, while smaller in scale, the park had the most expensive entry ticket among China's prominent theme parks as of 2015, charging 370 yuan per head. Amusement and recreation around the worldIn terms of attendance the Shanghai Disneyland park ranked third in the Asia Pacific region after Japan's Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios parks. As of 2023, the most visited theme park in the world was the Magic Kingdom (Walt Disney World) in the United States with a footfall of nearly 17 million.

The source estimated that, in 2022, the value of the global animation market would amount to over 391 billion U.S. dollars, up five percent from 372.4 billion dollars a year earlier. The annual figure was forecast to continue to grow throughout the decade, surpassing 587 billion dollars by 2030.

Highest-grossing animated movies As of mid-2022, the top-grossing animations in the history of Canada and the United States – collectively known as the North American cinema market – were popular titles worldwide. "Incredibles 2" (2018), "The Lion King" (2019), and "Finding Dory" (2016) led the ranking, with box office revenues of around 609 million, 544 million, and 486 million dollars, respectively. Disney is the studio behind the three titles, with the first and third-placed productions also featuring the signature of Pixar, acquired by Disney in 2006.

Beloved animated franchises Only four animated film series were among the top 20 highest-grossing movie franchises worldwide as of June 2022. They were "Despicable Me," "Shrek" (both under the Universal umbrella), "Ice Age," and "Toy Story" (both part of Disney's catalog today). However, an online survey conducted in May 2022 showed that Pixar was the film franchise most adults in the U.S. approved of: almost three out of four respondents said they were at least somewhat favorable to the animation studio's movies, surpassing "Star Wars," the "Marvel Cinematic Universe," and "Jurassic World."

Netflix's global subscriber base has reached an impressive milestone, surpassing 300 million paid subscribers worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2024. This marks a significant increase of nearly 20 million subscribers compared to the previous quarter, solidifying Netflix's position as a dominant force in the streaming industry. Adapting to customer losses Netflix's growth has not always been consistent. During the first half of 2022, the streaming giant lost over one million customers. In response to these losses, Netflix introduced an ad-supported tier in November of that same year. This strategic move has paid off, with the lower-cost plan attracting 70 million monthly active users globally by November 2024, demonstrating Netflix's ability to adapt to changing market conditions and consumer preferences. Global expansion Netflix continues to focus on international markets, with a forecast suggesting that the Asia Pacific region is expected to see the most substantial growth in the upcoming years, potentially reaching around 70.1 million subscribers by 2029. To correspond to the needs of the non-American target group, the company has heavily invested in international content in recent years, with Korean, Spanish, and Japanese being the most watched non-English content languages on the platform.

In 2023, Hasbro generated net revenues amounting to approximately five billion U.S. dollars, marking a drop of more than 850 million dollars from the previous fiscal year. Hasbro is an American toy and games manufacturer headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The company also operates a variety of media assets. Hasbro’s brands of toys and games Hasbro produces several internationally recognized brands of toys and games. In 1991, Hasbro acquired Parker Brothers and with it, its iconic board games portfolio which included Monopoly, Risk, Cluedo, and Trivial Pursuit. Monopoly holds the Guinness World Record for being the best-selling board game of all time. All in all, Hasbro is amongst the most recognizable card and board games companies in the U.S. toy industry. Toy rivalries and licensing In 2022, Hasbro was the third-largest toy company in the world after LEGO and Bandai Namco. Mattel, which is one of Hasbro's fiercest competitors, stood in fourth place that year. The Californian toy manufacturer generated nearly five and a half billion in 2021 and 2022. In 2016, Mattel lost its license to produce dolls and toys based on Disney characters (e.g., popular Disney princesses) to Hasbro, a loss which had a considerable impact on Mattel financially. However, Mattel recently reclaimed said license and its newest line of dolls and figures has already hit store shelves.

In 2023, Amazon Web Services (AWS) generated 90.8 billion US dollars with its cloud services. From 2013 until today, the annual revenue of AWS cloud computing and hosting solutions continually increased.

Amazon - additional information Amazon.com went online in 1995, initially as a book store, and achieved almost immediate success. In 1998 the store expanded to include a music and video store and different other products, such as apparel and consumer electronics in the following years. The company is the undisputed leader of the e-retail market in the United States, ranking ahead of walmart.com and apple.com in terms of revenue.

Amazon Web Services In 2006, AWS launched as a cloud computing platform to provide online services. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud and Amazon S3, which provide large virtual computing capacity, are the most well-known of these services. The company has dozens of locations in 25 different regions across the world and is continually expanding its global infrastructure to ensure low latency through proximity to the user.

From these data centers, Amazon is offering more than 200 fully featured services to its global customer base. Video streaming service Netflix is one of AWS’s largest customers, using Amazon’s services to store their content on servers throughout the world. Among its more than one million active users, AWS also lists other well-known organizations from various industries, such as Disney, the UK Ministry of Justice, Kellog’s, Guardian News and Media, and the European Space Agency.

According to an online survey conducted in May 2023, more than 95 percent of Japanese respondents who often watch free video streaming or video sharing services used YouTube. YouTube was by far the most popular service in this category. It was followed by TVer and Twitter. Japan’s YouTube consumption YouTube dominates Japan's video streaming market, with an overwhelming majority of people across all age groups using the service. The platform serves as a pivotal hub for influencer marketing and online content consumption. Offering a wide array of content spanning from educational videos to entertainment and vlogs, YouTube caters to diverse interests, firmly establishing itself as a cornerstone of daily digital consumption. In 2024, Japan ranked second globally in generating YouTube in-app purchase revenues, which encompass sales of channel merchandise, memberships, and highlighted comments. Video streaming market development The video streaming sector in Japan has shown robust growth in recent years and the market has become fiercely competitive due to a high number of platforms. While free streaming services have been a part of video streaming landscape since the mid-2000s, subscription-based platforms initially lagged behind their Western counterparts. Significant shifts occurred with the entry of international players like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in 2015, followed by DAZN in 2016 and Disney in 2019. Survey data highlights Amazon Prime Video as the preferred choice among paid video streaming users, while Netflix leads in subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) market share based on user fees.