Disney+ has experienced remarkable growth since its launch in November 2019, reaching around 125 million global subscribers in the first quarter of 2025. The streaming service's rapid ascent is particularly noteworthy given that it took Netflix, the current market leader, about a decade to achieve similar customer numbers in a less competitive landscape. Disney's biggest streaming competitor Despite its impressive subscriber base, Disney+ faces stiff competition in the streaming market, particularly among younger viewers. As of October 2023, Netflix remained the most-watched subscription video-on-demand service among U.S. children, capturing 34 percent of the audience, with Disney+ following at 31 percent. To address profitability challenges and retain customers, Disney has implemented strategies such as introducing extra member pricing in various countries, with costs ranging from 3.58 U.S. dollars in Hong Kong to 6.67 U.S. dollars in Italy. Market adaptation In response to the evolving streaming landscape, Disney has adjusted its pricing strategy. In late 2024, the company once again increased its monthly subscription prices for Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ in the United States. This move followed significant improvements in the provider's direct-to-consumer streaming segment, with operating losses decreasing substantially between 2022 and 2024. Disney's DTC entertainment business, for example, reported an income of about 143 million U.S. dollars in 2024 after years of making losses, demonstrating that Disney's efforts to achieve profitability seemed to have paid off.

While the number of UK households subscribing to Disney+ steadily increased between 2021 and 2022, Disney's subscription-based streaming offer has recently struggled to retain customers. In the first quarter of 2025, *** million UK households subscribed to the platform, marking a decline from the previous quarter.

Introduction

Disney+ Statistics:Â Since its launch in November 2019, Disney+ has become a strong competitor in the streaming industry. In the first quarter of 2024, the platform had 149.6 million subscribers.

This article will provide various Disney+ statistics, offering an insight into its performance, subscriber trends, revenues, and market standing.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, Disney+ Core, excluding India's Disney+ Hotstar, reportedly generated an average monthly revenue of 7.18 U.S. dollars per paying subscriber worldwide, marking an increase from the previous quarter of the same year. This drop is significant, given Disney's recent struggles to reach positive profits with its streaming division. Financial challenges for Disney’s streaming division In contrast to Disney’s direct-to-consumer business reporting losses, competitors like Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery's DTC segment have managed to achieve operating profits. Furthermore, Disney+ has faced the challenge of retaining customers recently, and particularly the Indian brand Disney+ Hotstar experienced a decline in subscribers in the company's first two fiscal quarters of 2023. Disney’s diverse content catalog Despite this, Disney+ has emerged as a formidable contender in the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) landscape, fueled by its vast range of content from Disney’s various subsidiaries, including Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, Pixar, and Marvel Entertainment, making it appealing to audiences of all ages. The availability of popular original series like "Moon Knight" and "Obi-Wan Kenobi" exclusively available on Disney+ has further solidified its position as a leading player in the streaming arena.

As of May 2021, users aged two to 17 years used Disney Plus the most in the United States, amounting to ** percent of the total amount of Disney+ consumers. In comparison, ***** percent of Disney+ users were aged 55 years and older.

In the third quarter of 2024, nearly one third of Disney+ users in the United States and Canada chose the platform's ad-supported streaming tier, up from 29 percent in the first quarter of the same year. In contrast, one in five Disney+ users in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) opted for the ad-supported option in the third quarter of 2024.

The number of Disney+ real users in Poland fluctuated in the observed period. The highest number of RU was recorded in December 2022, reaching over *** million. In December 2024, Disney+ had more than **** million real users.

In January 2025, around *** thousand downloads of the Disney Plus app were reported in Australia according to AppMagic. The highest number of downloads during the measured period was recorded in January 2022.

Starting March 24, 2020, Italian residents were able to sign up for the video on demand service provided by Disney. Thanks to figures provided by Airnow PLC, it is possible to get an idea of how the new video streaming service launched in the European country. In the first week, the Disney+ app reached nearly 174 thousand monthly unique users (MAU) on android devices. Their number increased to over 498 thousand users as of April 19, 2020.

According to data from a survey held in the United States in November 2022, Disney's streaming service Disney Plus was most popular with Gen Z and millennials (the generations born between 1981 and 2012), with respectively ** and ** percent saying that they used it on a daily basis. Meanwhile, just *** percent of baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) had watched the service at least once a day.

The data were obtained from a consumer survey about video content delivery subscription services (streaming services) with a total of 410 respondents, including 208 current users and 202 former users. The data were collected online on January 30, 2024, by a research company commissioned by the authors. The main variables are evaluation of the streaming services, satisfaction, and intention to extend subscriptions to the streaming services. Each column of the data represents the following variables. First, sample information includes a serial number, response date, response time, identification number, gender, age group, and occupation. The options for gender are male, female, and no response. The age groups are divided into 10-year intervals from under 10s to 80s and above. The options for occupation include company employee (full-time), company employee (contract/dispatched), civil servant/non-profit organization staff, teacher, school staff, doctor, medical professional, welfare professional, lawyer/certified public accountant/tax accountant, self-employed, part-time/temporary/freelance worker, full-time housewife (househusband), student, unemployed, and other. Second, the data include the current usage status (AM_A to HU_A) and past cancellation experience (AM_B to HU_B) for each of five streaming services: Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, U-Next, Disney Plus, and Hulu. The cases are also included where the currently used or previously canceled streaming service is not among the five options (NL_A, NL_B) or where there is no current use or cancellation experience (NU_A, NC_B). Based on this, samples with a value of 1 in the S1 column are current users, while those with a value of 2 are former users. The streaming service each respondent had in mind while answering is also included (S2), corresponding to the five options mentioned above. Finally, the data include responses from current users (Sat1_A to CSC3_A) and former users (Sat1_B to CSC3_B) regarding “Satisfaction with streaming services,” “Proportion of highly rated content (Ratio of good content),” “Degree of consumer evaluation of subscription-exclusive content (Evaluation level of original content),” “Intention to extend streaming services,” and “Axis used by consumers when selecting content (Content selection criterion).” Satisfaction with streaming services and good content ratio were measured using a 7-point semantic differential scale, while evaluation level of original content, intention to extend streaming services, and content selection criterion were measured using a 7-point Likert scale (1: Strongly disagree to 7: Strongly agree).

The number of Disney+ viewers in the United States is expected to increase in the upcoming years, reaching 152.8 million by 2026. By comparison, the streaming service, which announced the introduction of an ad-supported tier starting in December 2022, was estimated to have nearly 110 million U.S. viewers by the end of 2022.

A survey conducted in the United States in November 2022 found that the daily use of the streaming service Disney+ was most popular among younger age groups in the United States. ** percent of Americans between 18 and 34 years stated to use the service on a daily basis, whereas *** percent in the age group 65 years and older said to do the same. Correspondingly, the share of non-users was significantly higher in the latter than in the age group 18 to 34.

Disney Plus enjoyed significant success in terms of individual subscribers in Australia during its initial launch period, attracting nearly three million subscribers in late 2020 and nearly equalling Amazon Prime subscriber numbers. Elsewhere, Netflix had 14.17 million subscribers and Foxtel had 7.75 million. Unsurprisingly, the coronavirus pandemic boosted subscriber numbers to all services during 2020.

Multiple subscriptions becoming more popular

More and more Australian adults are subscribing to multiple video streaming services. In 2019, a survey revealed that 3.46 million adults were subscribed to both Netflix and Stan, and a similar number had Netflix and Foxtel accounts. Industry newcomer Disney Plus was most often combined with Netflix; 1.86 million adults had subscriptions to both services.

Netflix remains Australia’s most popular video streaming service, with 11.26 million households having a subscription to the service in 2019. By comparison, Foxtel (including the Kayo sports service) had 4.94 million households subscribed, and Stan had 2.61 million.

Video streaming consumption

Television consumption is shifting further away from traditional network television in Australia. A 2020 survey revealed that 51 percent of respondents thought it was more likely that they would watch TV from a streaming service than from traditional TV channels.

Over the course of an average week in the first quarter of 2018, 40 percent of Australians said they had used Netflix. This is more than double the average weekly use of Foxtel services; 16 percent of respondents to the same survey said they used either Foxtel Play, Foxtel Go or Foxtel Now in an average week.

According to a 2021 survey, white Disney Plus users accounted for 71 percent of the total amount of people using this SVOD service. In comparison, the share of Black people consuming content on the platform amounted to nine percent.

Netflix's global subscriber base has reached an impressive milestone, surpassing *** million paid subscribers worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2024. This marks a significant increase of nearly ** 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 *** 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 ** 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 **** 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 the first quarter of 2025, the Walt Disney Company reported that Hulu had 53.6 million paid subscribers, up from 49.7 million in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal year. Hulu has several pricing plans to cater to varying consumer preferences, with the most basic option including ads costing 9.99 dollars per month and the priciest monthly subscription package fixed at 18.99 dollars (without ads) as of October 2024. In addition to that, many bundle options are available, including access to live TV, as well as to Disney+ and ESPN+. What is Hulu best known for? Hulu is often best known for the dystopian TV show “The Handmaid’s Tale” based on Margaret Atwood’s novel of the same name or the comedy mystery series “Only Murders in the Building,” starring Selena Gomez. The shows have received a significant amount of media attention since their releases, and were among the TV shows with the highest amount of Emmy Awards nominations in the last few years. Hulu's history Content aside, Hulu’s past dealings with other media companies have also been a frequent point of discussion. The company was founded in 2007 and its board has included American investment firms as well as representatives from stakeholders Disney, Fox, and Comcast. A lot changed in early 2019 when The Walt Disney Company acquired 21st Century Fox, a deal which generated enormous online buzz and which gave Disney a 60 percent majority stake in Hulu. Shortly afterwards, multinational conglomerate AT&T sold back its 10 percent stake to Disney. Finally, Disney announced in November 2023 to purchase Comcast's 33 percent stake in Hulu. Disney’s newest streaming service, Disney+, is available as part of a bundle including ESPN+ (for sports fans) and of course, Hulu, which will cater to more mature audiences whilst Disney+ takes care of the family-friendly content.

Despite its rapid subscriber growth, Disney+ has recently struggled to achieve profitability. To address these challenges and retain customers, Disney is implementing various strategies, including the introduction of extra member pricing in different countries. In Italy, subscribers can add an extra member for 6.67 U.S. dollars per month, while in Hong Kong, the cost is significantly lower at 3.58 U.S. dollars, reflecting Disney's efforts to adapt to diverse markets.

During the third quarter of 2024, Disney+ mobile app reported around 4.5 million downloads from users in the United States. The service, which was launched in November 2019, generated approximately 8.12 million app downloads from U.S. users during the first half of 2024. In 2024, Disney+ was the leading mobile app among all Disney mobile services, with a global in-app revenue of 224 million U.S. dollars.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, Amazon Prime Video was the most popular subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service in the United States with a market share of ** percent, based on the users' interest in adding content to their watch lists of certain streaming platforms. Netflix followed closely with a market share of ** percent. Subscription streaming market – a money-losing business? While subscription streaming platforms increased their subscriber bases in the years 2020 and 2021 due to the measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2022 and 2023 saw services such as Netflix and Disney+ lose a substantial number of customers. Furthermore, the direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses of large media companies are struggling to turn a profit. Paramount, for example, reported a loss of *** billion U.S. dollars for its streaming services in 2023. Streaming companies take action In order to compensate for subscriber and income losses, streaming companies implemented several strategies, such as launching more profitable ad-supported tiers, cracking down on credential sharing, laying off thousands of employees, and spending less on content. The Walt Disney Company was already able to increase DTC profits recently. Its cost-cutting measures include layoffs and savings in content spending by reducing content produced and removing TV shows and movies from its streaming services.