BURBANK, Calif.—In less than three months since its initial launch on Nov. 12, 2019, Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger revealed that the Disney+ streaming service has 28.6 million subscribers as of Feb. 3.
The Disney+ streaming service was created as the new streaming home for classic Disney, Marvel, National Geographic and Star Wars content, as well as new original programming, like the popular Star Wars spin-off “The Mandalorian.”
Currently, Disney+ is available in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands. It is slated to expand to markets across Western Europe—the U.K., Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain. Austria and Switzerland—on March 24 and in India on March 29; additional Western European markets will add the service in summer 2020. Expansion into Latin America is expected in 2021.
“We believe the subscriber growth to date and the overall reaction to Disney+ reflects a variety of factors that includes the uniqueness of the service, an excellent user interface and the high quality of our brands and content,” said Iger during an earnings call. Iger said that the success of Disney+ exceeded the company’s expectations.
Part of Disney+’s strategy with its launch was to also provide Disney+ for free to new Verizon customers for a year, as well as traditional free trials. Iger also noted that conversions of free to pay subscribers and churn were better than the company initially predicted.
Iger also took time to during the call to announce premiere dates for new original programming, including Marvel’s “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” (August) and “WandaVision” (December), as well as the second season of “The Mandalorian” (October).
Disney also released subscriber information for its other streaming platforms, Hulu and ESPN+. As of Feb. 3, Hulu had 30.7 million subscribers and ESPN+ had 7.6 million.
