Disney+ will only have more subscribers than Netflix in one country, namely India, according to analyst Digital TV Research.
Disney+ will have more subscribers than Netflix five years from now owing to its affiliation with Hotstar in India, according to a report by the UK’s Digital TV Research.
The SVoD platform forecasts’ report predicts that Disney+ will reach 294m subscribers in 2026, overtaking Netflix, which will have 286m by that time.
Disney+ ended the first quarter of this year with 94.9m users globally, up from 86m subscribers declared at Disney’s December investor day. That surpasses Disney+’s four-year goal in little more than a year, and it is now targeting 260m subs by 2024.
However, according to the report, Disney+ will only have more subscriber than Netflix in one country, namely India, where Disney+ Hotstar has 98m subscribers and Netflix 13m.
Commenting on the findings of the report, Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “Disney+ Hotstar will roll out to 13 Asian countries by 2026. These countries will supply 108m (37%) of the global Disney+ subscriber total, but only $2.62bn (13%) of the platform’s revenues by 2026. Hotstar subscribers pay less than a third of the monthly subscription fee of their US counterpart”.
The research firm forecasts that global revenue for Disney+ will be $20.76bn by 2026, half of Netflix’s $39.52bn.
