South Korea to Get Disney+, Star on November 12
Disney+ expands its Asian footprint with new content, launches.
South Koreans, if you’ve been waiting for Disney+ to show up in your homes, the good news is that the wait now has a finite endpoint. The bad news, though, is that you’re going to have to wait about another two months. The end is in sight, however, as Disney+ will go live in South Korea on November 12.
November 12 is part of a worldwide event for Disney called “Disney Plus Day” — marking two years since the initial launch of Disney+.
“Disney Plus Day will be a balanced approach between global and local product,” Disney CEO Bob Chapek said during the company’s 3Q Earnings Call last month. “I think it gives us an opportunity to provide a focal point for consumers that have not yet tripped over to Disney Plus. It is going to give us a benefit not only in the U.S., but (around the world) as well.”
Once the service goes live in South Korea, local customers will pay KRW 9,900 (about $8.49 US as of this writing) per month for access to the service. A yearly package will also be available for KRW 99,000 (about $84.92 US), a fairly substantial discount.
Subscribers will get access to a wide slate of content from Disney’s lineup of branded entertainment. This includes not only Disney and Pixar content, but also Star Wars, Marvel, and National Geographic.
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Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”
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Star
Star is an extension of Disney+ that provides the service with an extra listing of shows and movies, tacking on more general entertainment programming. The exception is in Latin America, where Star is its own entity, Star+.
A further addition to the lineup comes from Star, which is more of an umbrella brand of content produced by not only Disney Television Studios, but also FX Networks, Searchlight Pictures, and several others.
Reports noted that South Korea won’t be the only place getting access to Star content as a result of this expansion; Japanese subscribers are also slated to get in on the action, and won’t even have to wait as long as South Korea does. Japanese subscribers get access to Star as part of a planned upgrade on October 27.
Disney+ won’t have a clear field when it hits South Korea, though; reports noted that Netflix has already made significant advances in the country. These reports further call the streaming market in South Korea “crowded” already. Word from Nielsen Koreanclick puts Netflix as having 7.9 million active users monthly, while a local boy making good, Wavve, currently boasts 3.88 million users to its credit.
South Korea and Japan are considered vital parts of Disney+’s overall advancement, but this might be a case of too little, too late. While certainly, Disney has the original content to back up its presence anywhere—where else can you find all those movies and TV shows?—it may have a challenge getting users to add one more service to their roster or throw over one of their current subscriptions to make room for Disney+. Certainly, the expansion will bring more subscribers, but only time will tell what the numbers actually look like when the service goes live.