Disney + has amassed a staggering estimate of 24 million U.S. subscribers as of the end of November, the strong debut for the new streaming package has boosted cancellations among Netflix customers, this according to a new Wall Street analysis. The research team at Cowen & Co., based on a census-weighted survey of 2,500 U.S. consumers conducted last month affirms that 21% of total respondents said they signed up for Disney+ in November, suggesting the 24 million customer base exiting the month. That would blow away previous Wall Street forecasts for Disney+, which had pegged less than 20 million subs worldwide for 2020.
While some research has indicated that Disney+ has had a minimal impact on Netflix, Cowen & Co. estimates that the platform will result in about 1 million additional U.S. Netflix customers canceling service for the fourth quarter of 2019. About 5.1 million Netflix subscribers in the United States will probably bail in Q4.
Other surveys are following the same route. According to one from Bank of America, of over 1,000 Americans, 6.5% of respondents using both Disney+ and Netflix said they only plan to keep the former, while a similar survey from Fortune paints the same picture, that approximately 14% of Americans have already subscribed to Disney+ with 15% planning on subscribing in the next month. The results suggest an increase in interest in the streamer, with an earlier survey from Fortune before launch finding that 28% of respondents were likely to subscribe to Disney+.
Breaking down by generation, Disney+ is most popular with millennials, with 25% saying they have subscribed to the streamer. This is unsurprising as people from this age group, who grew up during the Michael Eisner-dubbed ‘Disney Decade’ of the 1990s, are the most likely to have young children and a large amount of nostalgia for the Disney content of their youth. Cowen & Co. predicts than, on a longer spectrum, Disney+ will be directly responsible for a further 1 million US Netflix account cancellations, with the total losses for the quarter to sit at a little over 5 million. More specific numbers on the growth of Disney+ will be shown on Disney’s next quarterly earnings report.
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