Disney Plus Hits 100 Million Subscribers

Disney Plus has surpassed 100 million subscribers worldwide just 16 months after launching, Disney chief executive Bob Chapek announced at a shareholders meeting on Tuesday, Variety reports.

“The enormous success of Disney Plus has inspired us to be even more ambitious, and to significantly increase our investment in the development of high-quality content,” Chapek said. “In fact, we set a target of 100-plus new titles per year, and this includes Disney Animation, Disney Live Action, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. Our direct-to-consumer business is the Company’s top priority, and our robust pipeline of content will continue to fuel its growth.”

He noted that the company’s shares hit a record closing price of $201.91 one year after they hit “a COVID low” of $79 in March 2020, and that a significant number of subscribers signed up for Disney Plus after it launched on India’s Star platform last month, and this “has inspired us to be even more ambitious (and) significantly increase our investment in high quality content.”

According to a Variety report from last month, Disney now the has the second-largest number of paid subscribers of any subscription video streaming service based in the U.S., after Netflix’s more than 200 million with over 146 million subscribers between Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus. Amazon’s Prime Video has not reported a reach metric, but 140 million have access, while about 42 million have access to Apple TV Plus. ViacomCBS has about 19 million subscribers between Paramount Plus, Showtime and other video on demand services. HBO Max has 17.2 million accounts out of 37.7 million eligible subscribers, while NBCUniversal’s Peacock has 33 million users, though it’s unclear how many are paying for subscriptions. 

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