International. Disney reported its earnings for the third quarter of 2022, on August 10, a space where it shared having reached 221 million subscribers, surpassing Netflix's indicators for the first time and taking away its market leadership, but also reported an increase in its operating losses.
In the context of the socialization of the Walt Disney Company report, where he highlighted that revenue for the quarter and nine months of the year grew 26% and 28% respectively, Bob Chapek, CEO of the company, said that:
"We had an excellent quarter, with our world-class creative and business teams driving outstanding performance at our national theme parks, large increases in live sports viewership, and significant subscriber growth on our streaming services. With 14.4 million Disney+ subscribers added in the fiscal third quarter, we now have 221 million total subscriptions in our streaming offerings."
In contrast, Netflix has 220.67 million subscribers. Let's not forget that the company announced its results for the second quarter of 2022 in mid-July, context in which it also shared that it had lost 970,000 subscribers.
In that sense and according to the Statista portal "this is the second reduction in the number of customers of the platform in more than a decade and totals about 1.2 million fewer accounts in the first half of the year." However, he notes that Netflix forecasts a rebound in subscriptions for the third quarter "with one million new memberships worldwide."
Losses for Disney
While Disney's fiscal report confirmed that direct-to-consumer sales revenue rose 19% to $5.1 billion in the quarter. Not everything has been profit for the house of mouse, which confirmed in the same document "operating losses increased $ 800 million to $ 1100 million".
The company argued that such a situation "was due to a higher loss on Disney+, lower operating profit on Hulu and, to a lesser extent, a greater loss on ESPN+." And he linked it to the increase in costs for broadcasting 64 IPL cricket matches, 35 more than in 2021.
Price war on the horizon
According to the Reuters news agency , the next episode for these companies is the price war, because "there is evidence that the streaming market has reached a saturation point" and shows that Netflix lost 1.3 million customers from North American and Canadian territory in the second quarter of the year, a niche where the average income of users is higher than in other regions.
Phenomenon to which can be added the new rate increase for the USA declared by Disney this month, which will apply from December 8, within the framework of its modification of the offer for subscriptions with ads.
Now, the truth is that both companies seek to have the dominant role in the offer of streaming services, a market in which they compete with other providers, such as Amazon Prime Video and HBO MAX. At the moment, each one bets on projects of great impact, as is the case of Stranger Things for Netflix or the Star Wars and Marvel Comics franchises for Disney.
Finally, it is worth noting that compared to the monthly cost of the subscription in some Latin American countries (periods of February and March 2022, costs expressed in US dollars), Netflix offers the cheapest rate in its basic plan, but on average its 'Standard' and 'Premium' rates exceed the cost of Disney+, which has a single charge reference for the subscription to its services.
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