Disney’s ad-supported streaming offerings have reached a total of 157 million monthly active users globally, the company disclosed on Wednesday. The figure includes 112 million MAUs in the U.S. and Canada on average per month over the last six months.
The calculation is based on active accounts across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ who have viewed ad-supported content continuously for more than 10 seconds. Each active account is then multiplied by the number of estimated users per account to estimate the total number of users.
The global average is 2.6 users per account and it varies by application and region. The estimated active users are added across the apps without de-duplication, or users who subscribe to more than one of the platforms being counted more than once.
“Disney sits at the intersection of world class sports and entertainment content, with the most high-value audiences in ad-supported global streaming at scale,” Disney Global Advertising president Rita Ferro said in a statement. “We wanted to be the first to offer our industry greater transparency into the methodology used to estimate our engaged global ad-supported monthly active users.”
The disclosure from Disney comes after CEO Bob Iger revealed during the entertainment giant’s fourth quarter earnings call for 2024 that around 60% of new streaming subscribers are purchasing ad-supported plans, including 37% in the U.S. and 30% globally.
At the time, Iger said that the company’s October price increase was part of an effort to push more subscribers to ad-supported plans. Chief financial officer Hugh Johnston added that Disney’s streaming growth going forward would come from a balance of pricing and subscriber growth.
In comparison, Netflix revealed in October that its ad tier reaches 70 million monthly active users globally and accounts for over 50% of new sign-ups in 12 countries where the offering is available.
Meanwhile, Amazon recently said it has a monthly ad-supported audience of more than 275 million in the U.S. alone across its owned and operated properties. During its inaugural upfront presentation to advertisers last year, the company said brands could reach 200 million monthly viewers globally on Prime Video, including 115 million in the United States.
