In March this year, Disney+ had a price hike of an additional $1 to its subscription price shortly after it secures 100 million paid global subscribers. This raised some concerns around the streaming platform which upsets a lot of people especially its subscribers. Disney CEO Bob Chapek has something to say about the issue.
A relatively young streaming platform which launched just in November 2019, Disney+ successfully reached various parts of the world with US, Europe, Canada, Latin America, New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore. It houses various franchises of Disney itself, Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel. However, one of the complaints it had was being too centered on family-friendly content that it lacked those for adults.
This caused many subscribers to cut-off their subscription especially when "The Mandalorian" came to an end. Disney tried to reconcile this with adding a content hub for mature audience, Star, in February 2021 where there would be contents from ABC Signature, Searchlight Pictures, Freeform, FX, 20th Television, 20th Century Studios, Touchstone Pictures, Caravan Pictures, and Hollywood Pictures.
This addition, however, comes with a cost as Disney+ increased its subscription price for the first time since its launch. An addition $1 has been put on top of the monthly subscription rate of $6.99 resulting to a subscription cost of $7.99 a month, and a $10 increase on the annual subscription from $69.99 to $79.99. Those with bundles including Hulu and ESPN plus had an additional $1 cost to the monthly subscription as well resulting to a monthly cost of $13.99 from its previous $12.99 rate.
According to Disney CEO Bob Chapek, answering the issue during the recent quarterly financial results call for investors, he said, "Of course, these were our first price increases since we launched, we're extremely pleased with how the market reacted to both — in EMEIA, added star at a six brand title."
Chapek added, "We've seen an improvement in our churn rate. So we seem to be fairly resilient to those price increases, and as such, I think it makes us feel relatively bullish going forward that we still offer a tremendous price value relationship across the world for Disney+."
With Star included on the streaming service, it gave Disney+ a lead with more contents for mature audience, making the platform a more well-rounded one which could go up against Netflix or Amazon Prime.
What are your thoughts about the subscription price increase? Let us know your thoughts!
Related: Marvel's Shang-Chi Will Not Have A Same-Day Theater and Disney+ Release Date
Explore new topics and discover content that's right for you!
Disney