The Walt Disney Company took the streaming industry by storm last November when it launched its very own in-house Disney+ streaming service, a move that saw its stock price surge almost 19% over the course of a month to a high of $153.41 per share by Thanksgiving. The entertainment juggernaut amassed nearly 29 million subscribers in just three months – some likely partaking in the seven-day free trial program and many lured in by the service’s startlingly low $6.99 subscription fee (an announcement that saw the company’s stock soar more than 32% over a month last April).
Now that some of the dust is beginning to settle after the service’s explosive debut, South Carolinian consumer-research firm Piplsay have compiled a survey comparing Disney+ to similar streaming outlets. Their data indicates that 72% of U.S. consumers consider Disney’s offering to be at least as good as Netflix, including 23% who consider Disney+ better despite having less than 20% as much content. Of those surveyed, 79% also indicated that they consider Disney+ to be at least as good as Amazon Prime Video, and 77% consider it to be at least as good Hulu.
Besides providing on-demand access to Disney’s own vast library of film and television titles, their streaming service also hosts content from the many production companies that Disney has purchased over the last decade, including Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, and most recently, 20th Century Fox. That gives Disney+ users access to content including all of the Star Wars films and television series, all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films and television series, and thirty seasons of the perennial animated sitcom The Simpsons.
Disney astutely capitalized on its ancillary acquisitions with its opening-day offering The Mandalorian set in that galaxy far, far away and recently announced the premiere date for an upcoming seventh season of the former Cartoon Network series The Clone Wars, as well as releasing a teaser trailer for MCU-set television projects The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision, which will debut in August and December of this year, respectively. Interestingly, the survey also indicated that 28% of subscribers purchased the service primarily to watch Disney-branded content, with Marvel following at 19%, Pixar at 18%, Star Wars at 16%, and National Geographic at 12%. The remaining 7% cited other brands as their chief attraction.
Disney+ is available as a stand-alone service for the aforementioned $6.99 price tag, which 64% of subscribers opted for, while the remaining 36% of users purchased the package option which bundles Disney+ with ESPN+ and Hulu’s ad-supported option for $12.99 per month.
