Disney+ Loses 4 Million Video-On-Demand Subscribers In Just 3 Months

After a successful start and almost fifty million subscriptions in the first half of the year, the upward trend at Disney+ seems to have come to an end. Despite a jump in sales of around 12 percent or USD 600 million to USD 5.5 billion in the direct-to-consumer segment, which includes Disney+, Hotstar, Hulu, and ESPN, the core offering of Disney+ had to finish the second quarter subsequently accept a decline in subscriptions, as the chart shows.

At the end of 2022, the paid subscriptions to Disney+ and Disney+ Hotstar, the Southeast Asian version of the streaming service, were still 161.8 million; at the end of March, there were only 157.8 million. This can mainly be explained by the sharp decline in existing customers in the Hotstar segment. 

Around 4.6 million people canceled their subscriptions in Southeast Asia last quarter. While other areas in the entertainment media sector seek greater consolidation, the streaming video-on-demand (SVoD) segment is becoming increasingly fuzzy. 

In the last three years alone, six new streaming offers have been launched, each with more than 15 million subscribers, such as Apple TV+, Peacock, or Paramount+. According to Statista analyses, the SVOD market volume is expected to be around USD 95 billion in 2023 and to increase to around USD 137 billion by 2027. In addition to Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Tencent Video are among the market leaders.