Digital TV Research has upgraded its forecasts for new entrant streaming service Disney+.It follows Tuesday’s results announcement that showed Disney had exceeded even its own expectations with 28.6 million subscribers across the five countries where Disney+ is already available.
Digital TV Research believes Disney+ will be the biggest winner in the SVOD market over the next five years. It forecasts Disney+ will add 105 million paying subscribers between end-2019 and 2025 to take its total to 126 million. Disney+ will reach 53% of Netflix’s subscriber total by 2025 – up from only 27% in 2020.
Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “Much of this initial growth will come from the US, principally due to the attractive bundling of Disney+ with ESPN+ and Hulu. ESPN+ and Hulu are not yet available outside the US, but we still expect strong Disney+ take-up globally.”
It expects global platforms will have 553 million paying SVOD subscribers by 2025, adding 196 million subscribers between 2020 and 2025. Netflix will gain 51 million subscribers between 2020 and 2025; revealing that there is still growth left for the most established platform. Netflix will command 44% of the 2025 total for the five platforms; down from 53% in 2020.
Disney+ is already available in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and Puerto Rico.
It’s slated to launch in Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom on March 24, 2020.
Source: Digital TV Research
