Still sailing in bad waters Disney, which publishes a disappointing quarterly report for analysts and closes the stock market session by dropping 4%. Revenues, compared to the January-March 2020 quarter, fell 13% to $15,6 billion, lower than expected. To weigh, due to the pandemic, it is above all the closure of the parks, a business that has almost halved and which has brought home only 3,2 billion dollars in turnover in recent months. However, summer is upon us and the vaccination campaign, which especially in the United States (where Disney has most of its experiential activities) is proceeding at full speed, will certainly allow reopening and a progressive recovery in takings. If anything, it's the most worrying Disney+, the streaming platform launched in 2019, before Covid, but which in some European countries including Italy has already reached a pandemic. It was thought that the lockdowns could favor the growth of subscriptions and initially this was the case, but now the trend is slowing down, people want to return to socializing and as is happening to Netflix, Disney + is also registering the first negative signs.
In the first quarter of this year, the TV subscriptions of Topolino and associates exceeded 100 million worldwide, but the figure (103 million) is not judged in line with expectations, which predicted a total close to 110 million. Also because the streaming platform was to become the main growth engine in this phase, and so in part it was: TV is now worth 4 billion in revenues, +59% compared to 2020. To relaunch itself, in addition to the awaited reopening of the parks of attraction, Disney is aiming for a wider television offer. For example, he has invested in the next episodes of Star Wars, as well as on the Loki series, produced by Marvel and due out in June in the US. Disney + will also be visible in the coming months in potentially important new markets such as Thailand and Malaysia, and by 2024 it still has the ambition to approach Netflix: the aim is for 260 million subscribers, with Netflix having already exceeded 200 million last January, but which, as mentioned, no longer grinds as it once did. Also part of the Disney + universe are Hulu and the sports channel ESPN, which has just bought the rights to the Spanish Liga for the next 1,4 years for 8 billion.
