Nick Barclay / The Verge
Disney Plus added over 9 million subscribers in the US in the last several months, and many people in the US are opting for its bundle that includes Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus. In its earnings report on Tuesday, Disney also revealed that it added 12.1 million Disney Plus subscribers globally, making for 164 million in total, as well as 14.6 million subscribers across all its services.
Christine McCarthy, the chief financial officer at Disney, said during an earnings call that 40 percent of Disney Plus subscribers have the bundle with Hulu and ESPN Plus, which its pricing makes it increasingly hard to pass up. It provides access to all services for $14.99 per month for the ad-supported versions of Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus or $19.99 per month for Disney Plus and Hulu without ads (and ESPN Plus with ads).
The bundle price looks better after recent price hikes that brought the ad-free Disney Plus from $7.99 to $10.99 and ad-free Hulu from $12.99 to $14.99 (or $6.99 to $7.99 for the ad-supported version). It also implemented a price increase on its ESPN Plus subscriptions in July, which now costs $9.99 instead of $6.99.
Even with these price increases, Disney’s average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for Disney Plus in the US and Hulu without live TV actually decreased from $6.81 to $6.10 and $12.75 to $12.23, respectively. This is likely because more people bought into the bundle, as it reduces how much they’re paying for each individual subscription.
Although all of Disney’s services are adding subscribers, the company lost $1.5 billion in direct-to-consumer revenue. The company attributes this to a lack of Premier Access releases, which let subscribers watch cinematic releases directly from Disney Plus. It also says it dealt with an “increase in programming and production costs” as the company added more content to the service.
Disney remains pretty optimistic that its streaming services will continue to grow. On December 8th, Disney Plus is introducing its new, cheaper ad-supported tier for $7.99 per month that CEO Bob Chapek says the company has “secured more than 100 advertisers” for so far.