Disney+ Hits 10 Million Subscribers In Only 24 Hours, Super Exceeding Expectations

Shares in the company also soared when the news broke.

Elana

• Published in Disney
• November 15, 2019

At long last, after years of anticipation, Disney+ launched in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands this week and was met with resounding success. Disney reportedly invested billions of dollars into their all-encompassing streaming service which includes the most incredible library of Disney owned content we never imagined having such easy access to.

Disney+ includes a library of animated classics, their Marvel content, Star Wars, National Geographic, and what they acquired when they bought 20th Century Fox. While the launch was met with some glitches, it still definitely blew expectations out of the water. Some estimations predicted it would take Disney an entire year to reach 10 million subscribers, if that helps put perspective on how incredible it is they hit that achievement in a mere 24 hours.

According to Daily Mail, "in April the company said it plans to reach 60 million to 90 million Disney+ subscribers globally by 2024."

Coinciding with the wild success, shares in the company ended Wednesday's trading session up 10% to $148.72 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Disney's streaming service, which costs $7 a month or $70 a year after a 7-day free trial, was also made available for free for a year to some Verizon wireless customers as well as some customers of various internet provider services.

Unfortunately, Disney has not revealed a breakdown of how many of their 10 million fresh subscribers are paying customers or received the free service perk. Additionally, Disney said moving forward, it has no plans to release Disney+ subscriber data outside of the company's quarterly earnings calls.

To put things in perspective, Netflix launched their streaming service in 2007 and globally have amassed 158 million subscribers in that time, only about 60 million of which are in the United States.

A Star Wars based series that initiated with the launch, The Mandalorian, found itself trending on Twitter. Users buzzed about a surprise twist ending of the first episode and Rotten Tomatoes gave the series an impressive 90% positive rating. With exclusive new content like this coming up with launch, it's hard to imagine how Disney+ wouldn't have been so successful so quickly.

Clement Thibault, an analyst at financial markets platform Investing.com discussed the glitches with the launch and the perspective of success, telling Daily Mail:

While it's easy to focus on the temporary problems, there's no doubt that this also shows an enormous demand for Disney's services. Big launches often have their hiccups when consumers are fighting to be the first to have a given service.

Peering at the competition that is well established by now, it's hard to say they're set up for future failure.

However, Disney+ has definitely a HUGE market and an incredible price point.

It's possible that as other streaming services launch (HBO and Apple have small streaming services just getting started as well,) that the competition will get more intense. It's likely that it will come down to who has the best and most original content if they want to stay in the game and on people's financial priority list.

One thing is for certain, though. People are not messing around when it comes to their love for Disney.

Did you get Disney+ when it launched?

Let us know how you're enjoying it in the comments now! We'd love to hear any feedback you have on the new streaming service.

Elana