Disney+ added 7.9 million subscribers in the same quarter Netflix lost 200,000

Disney+ on iPhone 11 Pro (Image credit: Christine Romero-Chan / iMore)

What you need to know

Disney+ has announced a growth of almost 8 million subscribers for the previous quarter.
Netflix recently reported a loss of 200,000 subscribers last quarter.
Disney+ now has 138 million subscribers in total.

Streaming service Disney+ managed to add a massive 7.9 million subscribers to its platform last quarter, beating Wall Street expectations of as low as 4.5 million.

At a time when Netflix is still struggling with the news that it lost 200,000 subscribers last quarter, Disney+ is showing everyone how it's supposed to be done. THR reports that the streamer how has almost 138 million subscribers. When you factor in other streaming services including Hulu and ESPN+, Disney proper can boast more than 205 million subscribers in total as noted by CNBC.

However, Disney+ CFO Christine McCarthy seems keen to set expectations, warning people that such growth is unlikely to be repeatable forever.

Disney CFO Christine McCarthy also suggested that Disney+ subscriber growth could slow down in coming quarters. "It is worth mentioning that we had a stronger than expected first half of the year," McCarthy said on the quarterly earnings call, adding that some markets expected to go live in Q3 are in eastern Europe, including Poland, which may be impacted by the war. However, a stronger content slate in the second half of the year should keep Disney+ growing.

This is yet more bad news for Netflix. It faces ever-growing competition from not only Disney+ but Apple TV+ and more. Netflix's increasing price surely isn't helping, although plans for an ad-supported tier may help.

While Disney+ is indeed cheaper than Netflix, bargains like Apple TV+ make it seem even more costly. Priced at just $4.99 per month and available as part of the Apple One bundle, Apple's streaming service is surely the best value out of all of the competition right now.

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Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.