It’s not an easy time to be an investor in The Walt Disney Company.

Walt Disney Company Headquarters ©LA Times

Between lawsuits, political controversy, declining revenues, and stock prices at their lowest point in nearly 10 years, Disney stockholders are likely looking for good news. As the fiscal year draws to a close, Disney is preparing to hold its fourth-quarter earnings call — and chances are every investor is waiting for this particular announcement.

The Walt Disney Company is holding its fourth-quarter earnings call for fiscal year 2023 on November 8th, and we’re expecting to learn a lot of info about just how the company is doing. But, there’s one area, in particular, that investors are likely even more eager to hear about — Disney+ subscriber numbers.

©Disney

Disney+ subscribers have been decreasing since Q1 of this fiscal year, and it’s caused investors and analysts quite a concern. The latest decrease was during Q3 2023, with subscribers falling from 157.8 million to 146.1 million for a total loss of 11.7 million subscribers overall. 

The loss was mainly attributed to Disney HotStar — looking at just Disney+ domestic subscribers, the number decreased by about 0.3 million compared to the prior quarter. Internationally, Disney+ subscribers actually grew by about 1.1 million.

©Disney

Still, the overall decrease in Disney+ subscribers isn’t a good sign, and with CEO Bob Iger naming streaming his “number one priority,” the earnings call on November 8th will answer the question that’s been on everyone’s mind: Have Disney+ subscriber numbers gone up?

Bob Iger, CEO

During the Q3 2023 earnings call, one analyst asked Iger why Disney+ wasn’t showing the same kinds of numbers as other streaming platforms, like Netflix. Iger said, “Our streaming business is actually very young.” He noted that Disney would “love to have the margins Netflix has,” but because they’re “new at all of this” (meaning streaming), the company hasn’t achieved the kind of balance they know they need to when it comes to spending vs. profits.

©Disney

Disney announced it would be adding an ad-supported tier for the streaming service in 2022, sharing that it would be rolling out on December 8th of that year. Subscribers could either opt into the ad-supported tier or would be automatically “upgraded” to ad-free — which came with an eventual price increase.

©Disney | Ahsoka on Disney+

Prior to this change, subscriber numbers were only growing — likely because of the low-cost, no-ads plan that was the sole option when Disney+ first rolled out. At the end of Q4 2022, Disney+ had 164.2 million subscribers worldwide. Just a few short months later in Q1 of 2023 — after the ad-supported tier and price hike occurred — Disney+ subscribers had fallen to 161.8 million. Since then, we’ve seen a steady decrease during each quarter in 2023.

©Disney

Iger has previously said, “We’ve done a tremendous job in a very very short period of time of achieving the cost reductions.” He notes that the company is “reasonably optimistic and hopeful that we will be improving our margins.” Disney and Iger have stated that they expect the streaming service to be profitable by the end of fiscal year 2024, but from what we’ve seen so far, the data doesn’t seem to be heading in the right direction.

©Disney

It’s possible that ad revenue has helped to pad the overall financials of Disney+, but we’ll have to wait for the earnings report is released to know for sure.

We’ll be keeping up with the latest Disney news and are eager to learn just how the company is doing during the earnings call on November 8th, so stay tuned to DFB for more.

Disney Stock Plummets to Lowest Price in Nearly 10 Years

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