The new streaming service Disney+ is only available in Germany and other European countries from 31 March 2020. According to a press release issued by the Group, 10 million subscribers were cracked in the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands just a few days after the launch on 12 November. Further information on subscription numbers will not be published in the future, as Disney announced, but will only be published in the quarterly figures to investors and analysts.
Currently, the service costs only $6.99 per month. In addition to the low price compared to Netflix, the high number of subscriptions at the start can also be explained by the fact that customers of the mobile network operator Verizon Disney+ receive Disney+ for one year free of charge. Analysts assumed before the launch that Disney+ will receive between 10 and 18 million customers in the first year. New customers are also currently receiving a seven-day free trial period after which they can cancel their subscription. Whether the number of customers will remain so high in the long term or fall again after the first month has expired is therefore still to be seen. To entice customers away from the competition, Disney+ even offers Netflix and Amazon Prime Video subscribers a free month instead of the seven-day test phase.
At the moment, however, the supply of both competitors is much larger. Disney+ only streams its own content, including some well-known Marvel titles and the new Star Wars series “The Mandalorian” which has certainly moved some users to subscribe.
Also Apple TV+, which also started this month and costs 4.99 Euro per month, pursues a similar strategy and only offers own productions. Owners of Apple devices get free access to the streaming service for one year. The offer is with under ten series however in the comparison to all other offerers at present tiny. Disney+ offers 600 films and 150 series, which is still a relatively small offer compared to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
Disney+ users are still reporting problems with Nvidia Shield media players, which recently new models were introduced. Streaming is basically possible, but according to an article in the Nvidia forum, instead of 4K resolution it is only possible in HD resolution. A corresponding update has already been announced, but the release date is still open. Similar problems currently exist with Apple TV+ when using Amazon Fire-TV players.
