Disney+ Up to 86.8 Million Subscribers As of December

Disney+ is up to 86.8 million subscribers, as of December 2nd. Disney announced the new subscriber numbers during its "Disney Investor Day 2020" virtual event, which was held today. That is an increase of 13.1 million subscribers since the last update from Disney on October 3rd, where a count of 73.7M subscribers was announced. It is also well past Disney's low-end goals for the growth of Disney+. The high-end projection for this time period was 90M subscribers - a number Disney could still hit, if not surpass.

The success of Disney+'s growth has helped bolster Disney's big move into the digital streaming market. The company reported a total subscriber base of 137M in their overall direct-to-consumer portfolio, including 38.8M subscribers in their Hulu streaming service that is bundled with Disney+.

No doubt The Mandalorian season 2's arrival at the very end of October helped galvanize renewed interest in Disney+, and that big jump in subscribers. The fact that The Mandalorian is delivering headlining-grabbing Star Wars reveals each week hasn't hurt; the increasing lore has not only drawn more people into the show/streaming service, but also helped bumped related Star Wars content offered on Disney+, such as the Clone Wars and Rebels series. The Mulan movie adaptation has also just hit the service, after a misguided first attempt to force viewers to pay a premium charge for early-viewing of the film.

Disney has also done a pretty good job of side-stepping the massive disappointments in what Disney+'s content map should've looked like by now. Fall 2020 was originally stacked with the debut of Marvel Disney+ series with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in late summer/early fall, which would've rolled right The Mandalorian season 2 in the fall, and Marvel's WandaVision ending out the year - with Loki on deck to open 2021. Basically: users would've had every reason to stay signed in to Disney+ from September until...?

Of course the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out those grand plans for Disney+'s content library in 2020, and in that absence, services like Amazon's Prime Video and WarnerMedia's HBO Max have made strides in the market. Disney has largely been silent on how brands like Marvel and Star Wars were revising their plans... until today.

Now Disney is back to reveal how Disney+ (and its other brands) are preparing to storm back in 2021. Stay tuned for updates.