Just two years after Disney’s ESPN+ surpassed 2 million paying customers, the OTT streaming platform announced it now has more than 12.1 million subscribers as the company continues to tout growth.
The subscriber tally comes as of Jan. 2, 2021 and was announced during Disney’s latest quarterly earnings call. In November, Disney announced 10.3 million ESPN+ subscribers, and one year ago the number was 7.6 million. Subscriber growth for the platform was down slightly in 2020 as compared to 2019, but still impressive considering the months where live sports were shut down.
In 2019, Disney shared expectations of reaching between 8 and 12 million paying subscribers by 2024. The platform has far exceeded those expectations, reaching the 12 million mark three years ahead of schedule, but it’s been helped by bundling subscriptions. The bundle option for customers combines Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu under one subscription.
Currently, Disney+ has 94.9 million subscribers, an increase of nearly 70 million in the last 12 months. Hulu has 35.4 million subscribers according to the latest earnings call. The large disparity shows there’s room to add more bundled subscriptions, but ESPN+ is exclusive to the United States, while Disney+ also has customers in India (where the service has live sports including cricket), Japan, South America and Europe.
Brandon Contes is a former reporter for BSM, now working for Awful Announcing. You can find him on Twitter @BrandonContes or reach him by email at Brandon.Contes@gmail.com.
