Disney+ launched on November 12th 2019 in a few select countries before being rolled out to others over the following months and years. The subscription-based streaming service gives registered members on-demand access to almost every TV show and movie produced by Disney. It also includes content from several major brands acquired by Disney, such as National Geographic, Marvel and Star Wars.

It’s safe to say that when Disney launched Disney+, the company took a gamble. After all, Disney+ was going up against the likes of market leader Netflix and other major names such as Prime Video. Whenever you play games at a casino to try your luck, you’re taking a risk, which is what Disney did, but on a much larger scale.

But over five years later, has the gamble paid off? Has Disney+ been a success and what are its subscriber figures like?

A Long Road to Profitability

It’s common knowledge that streaming services usually take a few years to become profitable. Netflix didn’t make money in its early years as it shifted its focus from DVD rentals to streaming, which required significant investments. Other streaming services such as Paramount+ have taken a while to start making money as well.

When Disney+ launched, it had the advantage of offering subscribers a huge and varied catalogue of content. On launch day, there were approximately 500 movies and 7,000 episodes of TV shows available on the platform. Both those numbers have increased and continue to do so thanks to the large amounts of new content being added to the service.

Even though Disney+ had a lot of well-known content and had exceptional brand recognition, it failed to turn over a profit for its first few years of operation. In fact, it wasn’t until Q3 2024 (April-June) that the service made its first profit of $47 million. This was one quarter earlier than what Disney had predicted.

Subscriber Figures

So what about subscriber figures? While it took Disney+ a few years to start making money, the service has always had quite an impressive number of subscribers. On launch day, some 10 million people registered. As the service rolled out to more countries and promotion of it ramped up, the subscriber figures continued to grow.

As of August 2025, there are roughly 127.8 million people who have a Disney+ account. If you factor in Hulu (55.5 million) and ESPN+ (24.1 million), the total number of subscribers is 207.4 million. When you compare other streaming services, this combined figure makes Disney+ rank third behind Netflix (301.6 million) and JioHotstar (280 million).

Every financial quarter from Q1 2020 to Q4 2022, the number of subscribers was greater than the previous quarter. The first time the subscriber figure was lower than the previous quarter was in Q1 2023, when 2.6 million fewer people were registered with the service. The service’s current figure of 127.8 million is a significant decrease from its peak of 164.2 million (Q4 2022).

On paper, it might look like a disaster. You would think that streaming services need constantly increasing numbers of subscribers in order to remain profitable. However, Disney+ had managed to achieve profitability despite not having its highest number of subscribers.

This is because the service has increased prices several times, cracked down on account sharing and expanded its tier system. At first, there was a single tier. In November, a cheaper, ad-supported tier was introduced alongside a more expensive premium tier. Disney+ might have shed some subscribers when price hikes have come into effect, but the extra money has more than covered the people who have closed down their accounts.

What Happens Next?

Disney+ seems to be in a good position right now. It has a healthy subscriber base and is making a profit, plus there’s a wealth of new content that will make its way to the platform in the coming months and years. Even though some Disney movies have underperformed in recent years, this probably won’t have a significant effect on Disney+.

In all likeliness, one of two things will happen to Disney+’s subscriber figures: they’ll either grow or stay more or less the same. It would be very surprising if the number of people subscribed to Disney+ started to plummet to the point where the service had to stop operating.

A key contributing factor to Disney+’s success is the new content that’s added to the platform. A lot of this is exclusively for Disney+, while some of it is available elsewhere in some capacity, e.g. at the cinema and on DVD. Disney continues to invest heavily in its production of TV shows and movies, partly in order to help Disney+ remain successful.

One thing that’s inevitable is price hikes. Ultimately, it’s money that matters, and Disney doesn’t mind losing some subscribers to price hikes if they can make more money out of those who keep subscribing. There may come a point when too many people cancel subscriptions because of the price, but that seems a long way off right now.

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Categories: Articles, Broadcast

Tags: Disney, ESPN, jiohotstar, svod