Disney+ is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming media service owned and operated by Disney Streaming, the streaming division of Disney Entertainment, a major business segment of the Walt Disney Company. The service primarily distributes films and television shows produced by Walt Disney Studios and Disney Television Studios, with dedicated content hubs for Disney's flagship brands: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, ESPN (the US, Latin America, Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa only), and Hulu as well as showcasing original and exclusive films and television shows. Disney+ is the third most-subscribed video on demand streaming media service after Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, with 131.6 million paid memberships.
Disney+ relies on technology developed by Disney Streaming, which was originally established as BAMTech in 2015 when it was spun off from MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM). Disney increased its ownership share of BAMTech to a controlling stake in 2017 and subsequently transferred ownership to Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International, as part of a corporate restructuring in anticipation of Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox, through which the Star brand was inherited and got retooled as a content platform within the service in some regions, with Latin America having its own standalone service, Star+, until June 26 and July 24, 2024. The Star brand was phased out on October 8, 2025, being replaced with Hulu outside the US except Japan due to the existing Hulu Japan.
With BAMTech helping to launch ESPN+ in early 2018, and Disney's streaming distribution deal with Netflix ending in 2019, Disney took the opportunity to use technologies being developed for ESPN+ to establish a Disney-branded streaming service that would feature its content. Production of films and television shows for exclusive release on the platform began in late 2017.
Disney+ was launched on November 12, 2019, in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands, and expanded to Australia, New Zealand and Puerto Rico a week later. It became available in select European countries in March 2020 and in India in April through Star India's Hotstar streaming service, which was rebranded as Disney+ Hotstar. Additional European countries received Disney+ in September 2020, with the service expanding to Latin America in November 2020. It later expanded in Southeast Asian countries since 2021, followed by countries in Northern and Eastern Europe, Middle East and parts of Africa since May 2022.
Upon launch, it was met with positive reception of its content library, but was criticized for technical problems and missing content. Alterations made to films and television shows also attracted media attention. Ten million users had subscribed to Disney+ by the end of its first day of operation. In the third quarter of 2024, the number of global Disney+ subscribers amounted to 153.8 million. This marked a growth of around seven million compared with the same quarter of the previous year.
History
2015–2019 In late 2015, Disney launched a streaming service in the United Kingdom called DisneyLife to test the streaming market. It was later launched in the Philippines on May 25, 2018. The UK version was replaced by Disney+ on March 24, 2020, while discontinued in the Philippines on April 1 that year.
In August 2016, Disney acquired a minority stake in BAMTech (a spin-off of MLB Advanced Media's streaming technology business) for $1 billion, with an option to acquire a majority stake in the future. Following the purchase, ESPN announced plans for an "exploratory [over-the-top] project" based on its technology (ESPN+) to supplant its existing linear television services. On August 8, 2017, Disney invoked its option to acquire a controlling stake in BAMTech for $1.58 billion, increasing its stake to 75%. Alongside the acquisition, the company also announced plans for a second, Disney-branded direct-to-consumer service drawing from its entertainment content, which would launch after the company ends its existing distribution agreement with Netflix in 2019. Not long after, Agnes Chu, story and franchise development executive at Walt Disney Imagineering, was the first executive appointed for the unit, as senior vice president of content. Chu led two projects to launch the new unit. First, Disney needed to verify exactly what content could be physically and legally made available through a streaming service right away, which meant physically reviewing all content in Disney's vaults that had not recently undergone restoration, and reviewing "binders of pieces of paper with legal deals" to identify potential obstacles. Second, Chu met with leaders of Disney's various content-producing divisions to start brainstorming which projects would be appropriate for release on a streaming service rather than in movie theaters. Chu later left in August 2020.
In December 2017, Disney announced its intent to acquire key entertainment assets from 21st Century Fox. Intended to bolster Disney's content portfolio for its streaming products, the acquisition was completed on March 20, 2019.
In January 2018, it was reported that former Apple and Samsung executive Kevin Swint had been appointed the senior vice president and general manager, reporting to BAMTech CEO Michael Paull, who leads development. In March 2018, Disney's top level segment division was reorganized with the formation of Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International, which then included BAMTech, which contains "all consumer-facing tech and products". In June of the same year, longtime Disney studio marketing chief, Ricky Strauss, was named president of content and marketing, however reporting to chairman of Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International Kevin Mayer. In January 2019, Fox Television Group COO Joe Earley was named executive vice president of marketing and operations. In June 2019, Matt Brodlie was named as senior vice president of international content development. In August 2019, Luke Bradley-Jones was hired as senior vice president of direct to consumer and general manager of Disney+ for Europe and Africa.
On November 8, 2018, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that the service would be named Disney+ and that the company was targeting a launch in late 2019. A September launch was reportedly planned, but on April 11, 2019, Disney announced that Disney+ would launch on November 12, 2019, in the United States. Disney stated that it planned to roll the service out worldwide over the next two years, targeting Western Europe and Asia-Pacific countries by late 2019 and early 2020, and Eastern Europe and Latin America during 2020. The timing of international launches is subject to the acquisition or expiration of existing streaming rights deals for Disney content. On August 6, 2019, Iger announced that it would offer a streaming bundle of Disney+, ESPN+ and the ad-supported version of Hulu for $12.99 per month available at launch. At the D23 Expo in August 2019, Disney opened subscriptions to Disney+ at a discounted rate for three years.
On September 12, 2019, a trial version of Disney+ became available in the Netherlands with limited content available. This testing phase lasted until the official launch on November 12, when trial users were switched to a paid plan. Disney+ became available for pre-order in September in the United States with a 7-day free trial upon launch.
In October 2019, Disney released a video that ran for three hours and eighteen minutes on YouTube to showcase their launch lineup. It was also reported that Disney would ban advertisements for competitor Netflix from most of its TV platforms, except ESPN.
Disney+ launched on November 12, 2019, Midnight Pacific Time in the three initial launch countries. The services had some issues the first day with logging in (about 33% of the problems), accessing specific content (about 66%), setting up profiles and watch lists. Some of the issues were due to third-party devices.
On November 18, 2019, an investigation by ZDNet discovered that thousands of users' accounts were hacked using keystroke logging or info-stealing malware. Their email addresses and passwords were changed, "effectively taking over the account and locking the previous owner out", and their login information was put up for sale on the dark web.
2020s On March 12, 2020, Vanessa Morrison, who previously served as President of Fox Family and 20th Century Animation, was appointed President of Streaming for Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production and currently oversees the development and production of Disney+ film content from The Walt Disney Studios for both Disney Live Action and 20th Century Studios. Morrison reports directly to President of Walt Disney Pictures Sean Bailey.
On October 12, 2020, Disney announced a reorganization of their media business with a greater focus on streaming. They are planning to add more content for Disney+ and their other streaming platforms (such as Hulu) in the future.
On December 10, 2020, Disney announced that a year after the launch of Disney+, it had over 86.8 million subscribers. It was later announced that as of January 2, 2021, the platform had over 94.9 million subscribers. In January of the same year, Ricky Strauss, who led the service's content curation and marketing efforts, left the company.
In March 2021, Disney announced an increase to the streaming service's pricing that would take place on March 26, 2021. In the second quarter of 2021, Disney+ added 8.7 million subscribers.
In August 2021, Disney CEO Bob Chapek suggested that, eventually, Disney+ could be merged with Hulu (as in other markets), citing that the bundled approach had less subscriber churn than the individual services alone, but that "there may also be certain constraints that we're under that could at least, from a short-term standpoint, limit our ability to do what long term we might feel was ideal, but frankly we don't know what's ideal yet."
On March 4, 2022, Disney announced they will plan to launch a low-cost ad-supported version of Disney+ by late 2022 in the United States, with that version also expanding to other international territories in 2023. Disney later announced on August 10, 2022, that the ad-supported version of Disney+ launches on December 8, with more than 100 advertisers. Costing US$7.99 per month, with the ad free version of Disney+ receiving a price hike of US$3.
In May 2022, the company reported it gained 7.9 million subscribers over the first three months of 2022. In August 2022, it was announced that the combined total of subscribers across all Disney streaming platforms including Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ had surpassed Netflix with roughly 221 million.
In January 2023, Disney+ received its first Academy Award nomination, for the Italian film Le pupille in the Best Live Action Short Film category. In February 2023, Disney reported a total of 161.8 million Disney+ subscribers worldwide at the end of 2022, with a gain of 200,000 in Canada and the United States, but a net loss of 2.4 million worldwide attributed to the loss of streaming rights to Indian Premier League cricket in India.