The Walt Disney Company DIS’s streaming platform, Disney+, made significant progress in 2021, with big membership gains, the launch of highly anticipated episodes and movies, and some of the year’s highest-rated streaming entertainment. While the overall view of Disney+ was positive this year, the streaming platform has had some issues in the past year.
When Disney+ was revealed in March 2021, it had surpassed a milestone of over 100 million subscribers in just 16 months after its introduction in 2019. “Our direct-to-consumer business is the Company’s top priority, and our rich pipeline of content will continue to fuel its development,” stated Bob Chapek, CEO of The Walt Disney Company, as part of the statement.
For the most part, Disney’s material has been scheduled television, especially for fans of Marvel Studios. With episodes like WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, and Hawkeye, Disney+ released some of its most ambitious Marvel programming to date this year.
Each of these series will tie into Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which will include Black Widow, The Eternals, and the impending Spider-Man: No Way Home films.
Fans continue to pay for the app, with many yearly renewals taking place in November, when the service first launched. According to Sensor Tower data, the mobile app generated $1.5 billion in global consumer expenditure in October.
In July, Disney+ had the highest monthly mobile spending, owing to content releases such as Black Widow, Jungle Cruise, and Loki, the first two of which were already available on the streaming service but only for a fee through Disney+ Premier Access.
Netflix and Disney+ are two of the most popular streaming services, having more subscribers than Hulu and Apple TV+ combined. Hulu has 43.8 million customers, but Apple has never said how many Apple TV+ subscribers it has.
Apple TV+ and Disney+ both launched at the same time, but Disney+ has grown significantly faster due to its extensive library of Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars content, as well as the popular new shows listed above.
Disney revealed this year that, after exceeding its subscription goal, the firm has established a new goal for subscriber counts: 260 million by 2024. That number may be difficult to reach, given Disney+’s subscription growth slowed dramatically in the second half of the year. Disney stated in November that the streaming service has 118.1 million customers.
Disney continues to look forward to 2022, when new original material will be released throughout the year, with the majority of it falling between July and September. This is significant since it is the time of year when most youngsters are out of school and spend numerous hours binge-watching television throughout the day, and Disney is banking on families wanting to watch series together. New Marvel and Star Wars series such as Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, Andor, and Obi-Wan Kenobi are likely to bring in new subscribers and return ones.
Final Words on Disney+ Future:
Disney+ will have a bright future in 2022 if content is consistently delivered to subscribers and the storytelling quality that Disney is recognised for is maintained.
