Although Disney+ has reached 74 million subscribers globally less than a year after its launch, The Walt Disney Company doesn't expect the division to be profitable until 2024.
According to The New York Times, the direct-to-consumer division lost $2.8 billion in the 2020 fiscal year. Analysts forecast higher losses from streaming until 2022; after that, with lesser rollout costs and content expenses stabilizing, the division should see a profit two years later.
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It took Netflix seven years to get to 74 million subscribers, where Disney+ did it in 11 months. With subscriber growth in India and a launch in Latin America, some analysts forecast Disney+ may soon reach 100 million subscribers.
To build interest, Disney+ plans to add an array of content, such as a prequel to The Lion King focused on King Mufasa, a live-action Peter Pan & Wendy with black-ish and grown-ish star Yara Shahidi as Tinker Bell, a live-action Pinocchio with Tom Hanks as Geppetto and more projects in the Star Wars universe and Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some will go straight to streaming while others will have theatrical runs first.
Disney plans to boost its marketing for those projects by pulling money from its TV networks, which include ABC, The Disney Channel, Freeform, FX and National Geographic. In a conference call with analysts in November, CEO Bob Chapek said, "We will be heavily tilting the scale from linear networks over to our direct-to-consumer business."
Source: The New York Times