How Many Streaming Subscribers Did Disney+ & ESPN+ Actually Add in Q1 2022? It's Not As Many As You Think

During the Q1 2022 Earning Report, Disney released what appeared to be massive gains in their streaming subscribers to both Disney+ and ESPN+. If you dig a little deeper, the gains are not quite as big as they appear because of one major change in the quarter.

On December 21, Disney began bundling Disney+ and ESPN+ for all Hulu + Live TV subscribers. At the end of the quarter, Hulu + Live TV had 4.3 million subscribers. While some of those may have already had standalone plans of those services, those additions appear to be a major contributor to their Domestic growth on the quarter.

On the Q1 2022 Earnings Call, Disney said “that approximately 2 million incremental subscribers from our strategic decision to include Disney+ and ESPN+ as part of a Hulu Live subscription.”

If two million Hulu + Live TV subscribers were net new Disney+ subscribers on the quarter, they added closer to 1.9 million, more than half of the 3.9 million it initially appeared. Of the 6.6 million subscribers they added in the U.S. and Canada in 2021, more than 30% came from the Hulu Live bundle.

It also had an impact on ESPN+, which only has subscribers in the U.S.

In Q1 2022, they ended with 21.3 million subscribers, which was up 4.2 million from Q4 2021, when they had 17.1 million subscribers. While it is likely higher since it is a smaller subscriber base, if the same two million Hulu + Live TV subscribers became new ESPN+ subscribers on the quarter, they actually only added 2.2 million subscribers on the quarter.

While bundling Disney+/ESPN+ with Hulu + Live TV was a savvy move for Disney, the gains associated with it is a mostly a one-time event, which doesn’t really show that growth is back quite as much as it appeared – at least in the U.S.

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How Many Streaming Subscribers Did Disney+ & ESPN+ Actually Add in Q1 2022? It’s Not As Many As You Think

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