NEW YORK—Disney has created a new magic kingdom in the land of streaming with its Disney+ platform, according to media analyst Michael Nathanson, and one that he projects to see substantial growth over the next four years.
According to a recent report from Disney in August, Disney+ has around 60.5 million subscribers worldwide. Nathanson is now projecting that by 2024 that number will grow to 155 million globally, with 50 million subscribers here in the U.S.
Launching in November of 2019, Disney’s streaming platform reported 26.5 million subscribers at the end of the year. About 24 million of which were domestic, according to Nathanson, which made up about 20% of broadband subscribers in the U.S.
Prior to this take off, Nathanson estimated that Disney+ would have 25 million subscribers by 2024—Disney itself was projecting 60-90 million in that time frame. Now, with the real-life example, Nathanson is expecting Disney+ to grow to make up 42% of the U.S. broadband subscribers by 2024. Netflix, by comparison, is expected to make up 57% of subscribers.
Nathanson contributes the success of Disney+ to its aggressive pricing and strong programming and believes that it will continue to drive the business.
“Disney has proven to the Street (Wall Street) that Disney+ is a big enough lifeboat to help the company reach the other side of this media landscape upheaval in a strong position,” Nathanson said.
A full analysis of Nathanson’s report is available on TVT’s sister publication Multichannel News.
