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Disney+ Is On The Way To Being The Largest Streaming Service In The World

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Disney+, the all encompassing streaming platform for all things Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, National Geographic, Disney and more recently announced they reached 100 million subscribers since launching in November 2019. The speedy acquisition of paying subscribers has stunned not only analysts but Disney, especially since Disney estimated it would take five years to reach 90 million subscribers.

The streaming service seemingly crushed their own goal with the recent announcement that Disney+ now has over 100 million subscribers since launching in November 2019. The same subscriber number took Netflix NFLX ten years to accomplish. Currently, the rival streaming service has 203.7 million subscribers, while Amazon AMZN Prime Video is estimated to have 147 million global subscribers.

As Disney rises to the top of streaming the company has a new goal in mind for subscriber numbers: 260 million by 2024. Disney has also doubled its content budget to a whopping $15 billion.

The Walt Disney DIS Company is poised to take first place in the streaming wars according to Richard Broughton, an analyst at Ampere Analysis. “Disney+ has obviously experienced some of the fastest growth seen from a subscription video-on-demand service; kudos to them for establishing themselves as a global force so fast. While Disney+ is still only half the size of Netflix, it has reached that milestone in an unprecedented timescale,” said Broughton.

Ampere continued that Disney+ would take over Amazon Prime Video in 2024 and score second place as the world’s most popular streaming service. Netflix will remain in the top spot until at least 2025. Once subscribers for ESPN+ and Hulu are taken into account Disney could pull ahead of Netflix in just a few years.

Disney’s race to the top was catapulted by the critically acclaimed Star Wars series The Mandalorian. When season two premiered in 2020 the hype for the series had grown even more due because of the popularity of characters like Pedro Pascal’s Mando, Ming-Na Wen’s Fennec Shand, and the introduction of Rosiaro Dawson as a live action version of Ahsoka Tano from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Throughout the rest of 2021 Disney+ has a massive slate of content that will keep current subscribers interested in renewing, and help to accrue new subscribers. As the content calendar of new series and movies expands to include new Marvel series like The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and Loki more subscribers are sure to hop on board, especially if they were not fans of Star Wars and were actively waiting to be immersed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe again as Phase 4 begins.

Disney has said the company has a target to add more than 100 new titles to the service each year. This will greatly help in the race to gain more subscribers. Since launching, Disney+ has offered more than 4,500 hours of content, where Netflix has 40,000 hours and Amazon has 50,000 hours.

Broughton mentioned the key to Disney’s success is all about quality over quantity. “The others have volume, Disney relies on the quality of its brands. It has shows and films that people, fans, feel they must watch.”

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