Disney+ soars to almost 130M subscribers, beating Wall Street expectations

In its most recent quarterly earnings report, the Walt Disney Company outperformed Wall Street estimates. The corporation recorded $21.8 billion in revenue and $1.1 billion in net income, with $1.06 in profits per share.

Revenue of $18.78 billion and earnings per share of $0.58 were expected by Wall Street.

The streaming sector is where Wall Street is focusing its attention on, and Disney+ updated its efforts in the field on Wednesday, adding 11.8 million members to its total of 129.8 million. Hulu gained 6.6 million customers, bringing its total to 45.3 million (thanks to a $1-per-month promotion on Black Friday), while ESPN+ gained 4.2 million subscribers, bringing its total to 21.3 million.

Disney CFO Christine McCarthy told journalists on Wednesday that the second half of the year will see higher growth.

Due to fewer wholesale clients, Disney+'s average revenue per user (ARPU) increased dramatically to $6.68, up 15% from the previous year.

Nonetheless, the company's quarter was much better than the same quarter a year ago, when the new coronavirus epidemic was still affecting most aspects of the firm.

Theme parks, in particular, showed a huge improvement, with revenue of $7.2 billion, more than twice what it was in the same period the previous year.

Disney's linear networks generated $7.7 billion in revenue, almost unchanged from the same quarter a year earlier, with direct-to-consumer sales up 34% to $4.7 billion.

Increasing production expenses and sports rights drove up costs across the board in the company's streaming and traditional operations.

McCarthy noted on the earnings call that linear content spending will climb by around $500 million next quarter, while DMED spending will increase by $800 million to $1 billion. In all, Disney aims to spend $33 billion on content in fiscal 2022, with sports rights accounting for around one-third of that total, according to McCarthy.

And the price of those sports rights might grow much more. Disney CEO Bob Chapek revealed to CNBC after the market closed that the corporation was bidding for the NFL's Sunday Ticket package. Peyton and Eli Manning have inked a new agreement with ESPN, according to Chapek, which will see them provide alternate broadcasts (like they do on Monday Night Football) to other programming, including UFC.