Over the last twelve months or so, the streaming wars have heated up exponentially, but many of the new combatants have experienced mixed results. Quibi raised over $1.75 billion of capital before launching in April and it doesn’t even exist anymore, while HBO Max’s relatively disappointing subscriber count of 12 million is said to be one of the driving forces behind WarnerMedia’s decision to send their entire slate of 2021 movies to the service, a strategy that will no doubt pay off.
Peacock, meanwhile, has over 22 million customers, but many of them are happy to opt for the free version without shelling out any extra cash for access to more content, while AppleTV+ has a solid if unspectacular audience of 10 million. At the moment, none of them are anywhere close to catching the undisputed market leaders, with Amazon Prime and Netflix boasting 150 million and 195 million subscribers respectively.
However, Disney Plus is rapidly closing the gap after rocketing into over 86 million homes in the space of just thirteen months, despite the Mouse House’s platform paling in comparison to its contemporaries when it comes to high profile original content. Of course, that’s all set to change following the huge slate of Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Pixar and Walt Disney Animation projects announced at last week’s Investor Day, and the latest projections indicate that they could catch up to Netflix by 2022.
Disney Plus added over 13 million subscribers between October 3rd and December 10th alone, a lot of which no doubt had to do with the return of The Mandalorian, but based on the sheer volume of exciting exclusives coming down the pipeline over the next two years, it wouldn’t be surprising for the monolithic corporation to add another 100 million onto the rapidly expanding customer base.