Disney+ has proved to be the ‘genie’ for the media conglomerate as the streaming service has yielded phenomenal results in the first year of its debut. The d2c streaming platform has amassed 100 million subscribers, Disney CEO Bob Chapek revealed during its annual meeting of shareholders.
“The enormous success of Disney+, which has now surpassed 100 million subscribers, has inspired us to be even more ambitious, and to significantly increase our investment in the development of high-quality content,” Chapek said.
Launched in November 2019 in the US and 3 April 2020 in India via Hotstar, the incredible success of the streaming platform in its first year prompted the House of Mouse to boost up their pivot to d2c (direct-to-consumer) first business model. In fact, Disney reorganised its media and entertainment businesses separating content creation from distribution to boost d2c growth strategy.
Chapek also revealed that the company has set a target of 100+ new titles per year, which includes Disney Animation, Disney Live-Action, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. “While d2c business is the company’s top priority, the robust pipeline of content will continue to fuel its growth”, he added.
Disney+ also introduced the general entertainment brand, Star on 23 February in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Western Europe catering to the adult audience featuring content from 20th Century Studios, A&E, FX and Searchlight Pictures.
Chapek shared that the response has been phenomenal in all the markets, and the company will launch an exclusive Star+ service in Latin America this summer, Disney+ including Star in other European markets.
Disney+Hotstar has also seen massive growth in India. While India has remained a major growth driver for overall Disney+, the rebranded Disney+Hotstar is expected to have more than 50 million subscribers by 2021 end, a recent Media Partners Asia (MPA) report stated.
Chapek was also quite confident at a recent conference that Hotstar would scale from 30 million to 100 million paid subs by 2024, given the investment in programming the company is making.