After only adding 2 million subscribers last quarter, Disney+ beat projections for the first quarter of the fiscal year by adding 11.8 million subscribers worldwide to bring its total to 129.8 million.
The bump in subscriber growth comes in a quarter in which the streaming service released the first episode of the “Star Wars” series “The Book of Boba Fett,” as well as the Marvel series “Hawkeye.”
The company also released films initially screened exclusively in theaters on the service, including Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and Disney Animation’s “Encanto,” the latter of which CEO Bob Chapek teased in the company’s earnings call would be turned into the next Disney franchise.
For the first time in its earnings report, Disney broke down its global subscriber count by domestic and international categories, reporting 42.9 million Disney+ subscribers in the U.S. and Canada and 41.1 million in international territories, along with 45.9 million subscribers to Disney+ Hotstar in India.
Between all of its streaming services, including Hulu and ESPN+, Disney now has 196.4 million paying subscribers. ESPN+ added 4.3 million subscribers to bring its total to 21.3 million as the sports network began its new broadcasting partnership with the NHL this past October. Hulu subscriber growth was more modest at 1.5 million this past quarter for a total of 45.3 million between streaming on-demand and live TV subscriptions.