Disney+ is profitable, but loses 700K subscribers in Q1 2025

Disney has shared its earnings for Q1 2025 (which went from October to December), showing that its streaming service’s earth-shattering growth is starting to slow down. 

According to the report, the service lost 700,000 subscribers, and further modest declines are expected throughout most of 2025. Gizmodo explains that the loss in subscribers likely comes from increased subscription prices and the crackdown on password sharing. 

For additional context, Hulu added 1.6 million subscribers in 2024. It currently has 53.6 million subscribers, up from 52 million last year. Disney+ has 124.6 million subscribers, down from 125.3 million last year.

Combined, the two services had 178 million subscriptions, an increase of 900,000 users compared to last year.

Despite the drop in subscribers, Disney beat their overall performance in terms of financial expectations. Their earnings per share currently sit at $1.76 USD ($2.52 CAD), while analysts were expecting $1.43 USD ($2.05 CAD) per share. Disney parks did quite well,  seeing a significant jump compared to last year, but Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton significantly impacted them. One major difference compared to other streaming giants is that Disney has other ventures outside of media that the company can fund the service.

When Bob Iger returned to the CEO role in 2022, he set a goal of making Disney’s streaming services available by the end of 2024. They appear to have hit that goal. Disney also decreased spending on content compared to last year, something that Iger wanted to accomplish to improve the quality of the content coming out.

Source: Gizmodo