Disney just revealed some HUGE updates during its earnings call for the second quarter of 2024.

The call, which was held on May 7th, revealed a lot of details about the financial state of The Walt Disney Company, including how the company’s streaming business is doing, how the parks are doing, and more. The company also revealed some plans it has for the future, but don’t worry if you missed it: we’re going to give you a rundown of everything right here.

Overall Financial Results

Disney called their latest fiscal quarter “another impressive quarter” with “results driven by experiences and streaming.” In terms of The Walt Disney Company’s overall financial results, here’s what Disney has reported for Q2 of FY 2024:

• Revenues for the quarter increased to $22.1 billion from $21.8 billion in the prior year quarter.
• Diluted earnings per share (EPS) was a loss of $0.01 for the current quarter compared to income of $0.69 in the prior-year quarter. Diluted EPS decreased to a nominal loss due to goodwill impairments in the quarter, partially offset by higher operating income at Entertainment and Experiences.
• Excluding certain items, diluted EPS for the quarter increased to $1.21 from $0.93 in the prior-year quarter.

Disney+ Subscribers and Profits

Disney+ subscribers actually decreased in the first quarter of 2024, which Disney expected. This quarter, however, Disney+ Core subscribers increased by more than 6 million.

The company reached an important milestone for streaming in the most recent quarter: The Entertainment Direct-to-Consumer division achieved profitability. Iger said that this is particularly notable because the company reported peak losses just 18 months ago.

Disney expects softer Entertainment DTC results in Q3, but they are still anticipating that their combined streaming businesses will be profitable by the fourth quarter, and they expect streaming to be a meaningful future growth driver for the company, with further improvements in profitability in the 2025 fiscal year.

Click here to learn more about the Disney+ subscriber numbers

Theme Park Updates

So how are things going for the Parks, Experiences, and Products division?

Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products revenues for the quarter increased overall by 10% from $7.6 billion in the same quarter last year to $8.3 billion this quarter. The better results this year were due to Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, and the international parks having higher results. However, the increase was offset by Disneyland having lower results.

At Disney World, higher results in the current quarter compared to the prior-year quarter were attributed to increased guest spending, including higher average ticket prices.

The decrease in operating results at Disneyland is attributed to higher wage expenses and inflation, and while there were higher volumes of attendance, it was offset by lower occupied room nights at the hotels.

Disney’s international parks are doing well. Revenue internationally increased by 29% since last year at this same time.

Overall, this increase was due to higher ticket prices, an increase in food, beverage, and merchandise being sold, higher attendance and occupied room nights at hotels, and an increase in the number of days the parks were open this quarter. Of course, new offerings like World of Frozen in Hong Kong helped a great deal as well.

As for Disney’s consumer products, the increase in consumer product operating results was driven by higher game licensing revenue.

Click here to learn more about how Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products are doing

ESPN

But the main topic that Iger seemed to be focused on most was how well ESPN has grown for Disney this quarter. ESPN will get its own tile on Disney+ by the end of the year and the new sports streaming service will launch in the fall of 2025.

Bob Iger went on to explain that ESPN’s domestic ad sales were up 20% in the quarter — partially because there was an extra college football playoff game to help those numbers. The real star of the quarter for this growth, though, was the NCAA women’s Final Four game in Cleveland. Disney reported it was the most viewed game on record and the championship between Iowa and South Carolina was ESPN’s most-viewed college basketball game ever between both men’s and women’s.

This led to ESPN’s Prime Time viewership being the highest on record to date with expectations for that to grow later through the year with the addition of more long-term deals with significant sports organizations, including college football championships, NCAA championships, and the NFL.

Click here to learn more about Disney’s future plans for ESPN+! 

So that’s how The Walt Disney Company is doing right now, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for more updates as we move into the third quarter of 2024. Stay tuned to DFB for more.

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