Beijing, August 11 – The number of Disney streaming video subscribers has increased to 221 million, surpassing Netflix.
Disney also announced that customers who want to watch ad-free Disney + or Hulu content will have to pay a higher fee. The monthly fee for the ad-free Disney + service will increase 38 percent to $10.99 this December, and if you don’t want to pay the higher fee, the content will come with ads.
Disney shares jumped 6.9 percent to $120.15 after hours on Wednesday.
Disney began betting on streaming services in 2017 to compete with Netflix as viewers switched from traditional cable and broadcast TV to the Web. now, five years later, Disney has more total streaming subscribers than Netflix.
Disney+ customers added 14.4 million in one quarter, and with Hulu and ESPN+, Disney had 221.1 million paid streaming subscribers at the end of June.
Disney is gaining ground, while Netflix paid subscribers are struggling to grow,” said Haris Anwar, an analyst at Investing. Disney has a lot of room to grow in markets where the service is launching quickly, and new customers will be added.”
To attract new customers, starting Dec. 8 Disney will offer an ad-based version of the service for $7.99 a month, the same price as the current ad-free version. the monthly fee for Hulu will increase by $1 to $2 in December.
According to Disney’s projections, Disney+ will reach 215-245 million subscribers by the end of September 2024.
