Disney dethrones Netflix and converts to advertising

The American group has managed to impose its Disney+ streaming platform in less than three years. But he still has to make it profitable.

by and

It would have been barely three years in the Walt Disney group to exceed the master Netflix. Thanks to the 14.4 million new subscribers won in the second quarter of 2022 by its Disney+video streaming platform, launched in November 2019, and counting its other Hulu and ESPN+services, the American media giant listed 221.1 million ‘Paid users in early July. It is 400,000 more than its large Netflix rival. The latter is thus delighted, for the first time, its world crown in number of subscribers. Disney+ alone accounts for 152.1 million paid users.

Launched in November 2019, just before the Pandemic of Covid-19, Disney+ took full advantage of the confinements to garner subscribers in search of occupation. To attract them to its nets, in addition to using the world’s fame for its headliners Marvel or Star Wars, the American group did not hesitate to reserve exclusively for its platform the release of several of its long Fits, to the detriment of cinemas. Prey, the new opus of its Predator franchise, is so only visible on Disney+ since August 5. This strategy also sometimes serves, as in France, as a means of pressure against temporal rules of broadcasting films: Avalonia, the strange trip (Strange World), the next Disney animated film expected this fall, will not be released in The rooms of hexagon.

Disney also benefited in the United States from a tariff advantage compared to Netflix: its monthly subscription cost $ 2 dollars (1.93 euros) less than that than Netflix, at $ 7.99 against $ 9.99. The tariffs imposed in October 2021 and then in January 2022 by the former world number one video streaming played heavily in the loss of his crown. Netflix lost nearly a million subscribers in the second quarter of 2022, after a first erosion of 200,000 units at the start of the year, which had never happened to him before.

a promise of profitability In 2024

But these two and a half years of offensive have left traces in Disney finances. In the second quarter of 2022 alone, the three group streaming platforms lost $ 1.1 billion. They have accumulated more than 5 billion losses in total since late 2019. Thanks to its other activities in amusement parks and television channels, the group remains profitable. But he will not be able to keep this pace indefinitely. He promised to do his service profitable in 2024.

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/Media reports.