As part of its financial results presentation for the first fiscal quarter (from October to December 2020), The Walt Disney Company reported that, just over a year after the official launch of Disney+ – which took place in the US on November 12th, 2019-, its SVOD OTT currently reports 94.9 million subscribers globally. The figure was higher than the company’s forecast, which estimated a total of 90 million subscribers by 2023. The platform was launched in Latin America on November 17th last year.
In turn, Disney+ reported a total of 8.1 million subscribers more than the 86.8 million had until the first days of December 2020. In addition, at the beginning of October, a month before being available in Latin America, Disney’s SVOD OTT reported more than 73 million subscribers.
On December 25th, Disney+ released ‘Soul’, a new original film from Pixar Animation Studios, in PVOD format, as it did with ‘Mulan’, which was officially released in the same format. Later, at the end of October 2020, Disney+ launched the official trailer for ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’, and announced that the new title from Walt Disney Animation Studios will also be released under the PVOD format, on March 5th. In addition, during its Investor Day, which took place on December 10th last, the company announced that it is working on the production of 105 new films and series that will be released under the Star Wars, Marvel, Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios brands.
On February 22nd, Disney rebrand its Fox channels in Latin America, which will adopt the ‘Star’ brand. Likewise, the company announced that during 2021 it will launch Star+, its new SVOD OTT, in Latin America, and reported that it will soon give more details about its catalog. However, during the company’s Investor Day in December, Disney announced that it plans to launch Star+ as a standalone OTT in June this year, and that its catalog will include Star content, local original productions and a variety of live sports from ESPN, including football leagues and Grand Slam tennis tournaments. In addition, the SVOD OTT subscription will be valued at around USD 7.5 per month, although a package with Disney+ and Star+ catalogs will also be available, for USD 9 per month.
‘While these are still difficult times, we are more confident than ever that we will emerge from this crisis in a strong position. We are proud of all that we have achieved, especially related with our top priority, our D2C business, and we believe that the strategic actions we are taking to transform our business will enable us to improve the consumer experience, grow and expand our business and increase shareholder value’, said Bob Chapek, CEO at The Walt Disney Company.