Disney+ subscribers reach 164 million worldwide

The Walt Disney Co. ended the July-September quarter with a gain of 12.1 million in Disney+ streaming subscribers.

Up from 152.1 million last quarter, Disney+ subscribers totaled 164.2 million by Oct. 1, the end of the conglomerate’s fourth-quarter and fiscal 2022 results, which were reported Tuesday. The streamer’s haul of 12.1 million accounts, 2 million of them in the US and Canada, crushed analysts’ forecasts of an 8.9 million subscriber gain.

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Overall, Disney’s range of direct-to-consumer services, which includes Disney+, Disney+ Hotstar, Hulu and ESPN+, has surpassed 235 million global subscribers, up from 221.1 million total subscribers worldwide at the end of the previous quarter.

In comparison, Netflix reported that the number of subscribers grew to 223.1 million worldwide, after two consecutive quarters of decline, by the end of September, while Warner Bros. Discovery says that HBO, HBO Max and Discovery+ accounted for nearly 95 million global customers combined at the end of the same quarter.

For ESPN+, the quarter saw a year-over-year increase from 17.1 million to 24.3 million subscribers, while Hulu rose from 43.8 million (39.7 million SVOD-only customers combined with 4 million Live TV +SVOD subscribers ) to 47.2 million (42.8 million SVOD only customers combined with 4.4 million Live TV + SVOD subscribers).

During the June-September quarter, Disney+ released streaming originals including “Hocus Pocus 2,” “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” Season 2, “Andor,” Tom Hanks’ live-action “Pinocchio,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi » “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” and “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” Season 3, among other titles. Per Disney+, the top performers in the quarter in terms of acquisitions and engagement were “Hocus Pocus 2,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Andor,” and “She-Hulk.”

Disney+ will launch its ad-supported tier during the current quarter, with that option rolling out on December 8.

The company had predicted this peak, and CFO Christine McCarthy stated during Disney’s previous earnings call in August an expectation that net additions for the Disney+ core (excluding Disney+ Hotstar) would “accelerate modestly” in the September quarter during the third quarter, “particularly in the domestic market .”