Disney+ lost 4 million subscribers in Q1 2023

For the past few months, Disney+ has been going through a tough time. The streaming service was already underperforming in the last quarter of 2022, with more than 2.4 million subscribers leaving. It’s a first since the platform launched in 2019.

Afterwards, the big-eared firm announced that its restructuring plan had been implemented. 7,000 layoffs. And it’s clear that Disney+ is struggling to raise the bar.

Disney+ continues to lose subscribers in Q1 of 2023

As our colleagues at TechCrunch reported, the American company just gave bad news to its investors on the occasion of the announcement of financial results for the first quarter of 2023.

For this reason, Disney+ lost at least 4 million subscribers during this periodincreased its total user base to 157.8 million, up from 161.8 million in the previous quarter. Anyway, so it was a disappointment for Disney, which many analysts relied on. increase in subscribersEstimates are at 163.17 million subscribers.

Obviously, the main reason for this decline Numerous dropouts recorded on the Disney+ Hotstar service, the version available in the Indian market. Rightfully so, it’s gone from 57.5 million to 52.9 million, losing about 8% of its user base.

Writers’ strike doesn’t help matters

It should also be noted that these poor performances arose when Disney stopped production of some strong upcoming series like Marvel’s Blade or even season 2 of Andor. Reason ? Writers strike call by Writers Guild of America (WGA) earlier this week. Writers are demanding better compensation and fairer rights for series and movies scheduled for streaming services.

This move is risky if prolonged delaying the publication of content for several months. Enough to force users who need new features to slam the door in turns. Especially since Disney has already cleared its schedule by shifting the three Marvel series planned for 2023 to next year. bad idea? Maybe everything has been thought of.

Despite this subscriber debut, things are actually going pretty well for Disney+. The service has drastically reduced its losses, from $1 billion in the last quarter of 2022 to $659 million at the start of 2023. Revenue also rose to $5.5 billion.

Source : TechCrunch