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02/03/2021

Households Without Children Drives Subscriber Growth Of Disney+, Says CEO




Households Without Children Drives Subscriber Growth Of Disney+, Says CEO
Walt Disney Co has been able to easily surpass its initial projections for subscriptions to its Disney+ video streaming service last year. And the reason behind this growth has also surprised officials of the company.
 
Disney’s Chief Executive Bob Chapek said on Monday that the company was surprised to find out that this growth in the number of subscriptions was driven by strong interest for the firm’s video streaming services from adults who did not have any kinds or children at home
 
Since it was launched in the market in the month of November of 2019, the fast growth in the number of subscribers to Disney+ has surpassed expectations and predictions at Wall Street as well the company’s own forecast. Even though Walt Disney’s content is better known for its family oriented entertainment, the Disney+ streaming service also features movies and TV shows from Marvel, "Star Wars" studio Lucasfilm and others, which can have a mass appeal irrespective of age, said analysts.
 
The services had notched up a total of 94.9 million customers throughout the globe as of January 2. And about half of those subscriptions are from people who are part of households that do not have any children which is a much higher proportion that the company and the market had expected, Chapek said.
 
"What we didn't realize was the non-family appeal that a service like Disney+ would have," Chapek said in an online video conference to the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference.
 
"In fact, over 50% of our global marketplace don't have kids," he added. "When 50% of the people in Disney+ don't have kids, you really have the opportunity now to think much more broadly about the nature of your content," he said.
 
The current Marvel show "WandaVision" and "Star Wars" series "The Mandalorian" that features the character which is known as Baby Yoda has generated quite a buzz among viewers in favour of the streaming service.
 
With customers throughout the world shifting to viewing content on online streaming services such as Disney+ rival Netflix, the focus of the company of the company was shifted towards making video streaming as the priority for its media and entertainment businesses under the leadership of Chapek, who was appointed as the Disney CEO just about a year ago.
 
The initial projections for the number of subscribers for its Disney+ streaming service was raised by the company in December last year. At that time the company had said that it expected to rope in as many as 350 million subscribers globally across all of its streaming services by the end of its fiscal 2024 and will include its other streaming  services of Hulu and ESPN+.
 
(Source:www.usnews.com)

Christopher J. Mitchell

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