Analyst Boosts Disney+ Subscriber Forecast

No matter who you asked, Disney+ was always poised to be a major success. A streaming service containing the Disney Vault, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the Star Wars Skywalker Saga would be hard to botch, but the ever-successful House of Mouse is exceeding lofty expectations in the first few months of Disney+. As of last week, just days after the Disney+ launch in most European countries, the service reported 50 million global subscribers. Now the projections for the future of Disney+ are climbing even higher.

According to Guggenheim Securities analyst Michael Morris, the subscriber forecast for Disney+ is much higher following the report of 50 million subscribers. Morris' previous estimates suggested that Disney+ would see 135 million global subscribers by the end of 2024. The current estimates, updated this week, predict that Disney+ will have more than 226 million subscribers at that time.

The analyst believes that, by 2024, Disney+ will have 74 million domestic subscribers, up from the previous forecast of 59 million, as well as 153 million International subscribers, up from 74 million. These kinds of numbers should put Disney just behind Netflix in terms of streaming dominance, with both set for big subscribers bases by 2024.

"For comparison, we forecast that Netflix will have 292 million global paying subscribers by year-end 2024, up from 167 million at the end of 2019," Morris wrote.

The sustained success of Disney+ largely stems from its growing library, which sees new Disney films added at a frequent rate. Frozen 2 and Onward, both new animated films from Disney and Pixar, respectively, were added to the Disney+ roster much earlier than expected, due to the spreading coronavirus pandemic keeping people at home. Originals are also playing a big part in Disney's streaming victories, with Star Wars: The Mandalorian once again showing up in trends now that the service has launched in the UK and other European markets.

Do you think the success of Disney+ will continue to grow over the next five years? Will it ever overtake Netflix? Let us know in the comments!