Disney nears streaming profitability, though suffers 10% stock dive

Disney+ series ‘Shogun’

Disney has recorded the first profit in its core streaming business, with Disney+ and Hulu earning $47m in its fiscal second quarter for 2024.

It reported a $587m loss on these services in the same quarter in 2023, but despite the turnaround, the company stock price dropped by around 10% yesterday, with the Mouse House missing revenue estimates for the fourth consecutive quarter.

While investors had short-term concerns about the theme parks side of the business, overall revenue rose from $22.1bn in the quarter, from $21.8bn on the previous year, beating Wall Street expectations.

Including the company’s sports streamer ESPN+, streaming losses were reported as $18m, narrowing the gap from the $659m loss at this point last year.

Disney said it still expects to achieve its goal of streaming profitability for its combined services by the fourth quarter of this year, which it first set out in 2019.

The number of Disney+ core subscribers (not including Disney+ Hotstar) rose by 6.3 million to 117.6 million, again beating analyst predictions. Hulu, meanwhile, rose by 1% to 50.2 million subs in the quarter.

“Our results were driven in large part by our Experiences segment as well as our streaming business,” said Disney CEO Officer Bob Iger.

“Importantly, entertainment streaming was profitable for the quarter, and we remain on track to achieve profitability in our combined streaming businesses in Q4.”