Revenues Walt Disney near pre-corona

Disney’s share price fell around 2.5% on Friday after the company reported its second-quarter results making it the greatest loser in both Dow Jones and S&P 500 Indexes. Sales were expected to be around $15.86 billion but the numbers fell short where the Company reported earnings of $901 million on sales of $15.61 billion, 13% down from $18 billion reported earnings about 12 months ago. The revenue per share was better than forecasted, which stood at 79 cents well above the expected 26 cents per share.

Media Segment

Disney’s rather new streaming service, Disney+, given a push by the pandemic crossed the 100 million subscribers mark in March of this year. It was expected that the company would report more than 109 million subscribers for the service, it fell short and reported just above 103.5 million subscribers. Disney’s total subscribers, which includes their acquisitions of Hulu, Hotstar, and ESPN+, was expected to be well above 161 million but the company reported numbers less than 159 million. The revenues stood at $4 billion from the streaming segment, just shy from the expected $4.05 billion.

The CEO, Bob Chapek, noted that as the effects of pandemic decrease and full production resumes, the company will go into a more normalized cycle. The increased output will help fuel additional growth across the entire portfolio of Disney owned streaming services. The company remains optimistic and still maintains that it will reach its target of 230 – 260 million subscribers by the end of fiscal year 2024.

Experiences Segment

Disney’s Theme Parks however came as pleasant surprise, in a quarter marred by the onset of the pandemic where most of the theme parks experienced limited attendance. The revenue forecast was expected to be around $1.24 billion which was shattered, and the reported number was $3.17 billion, more than double the estimates. As the theme parks are now welcoming visitors again, forward bookings for park reservations stand strong and those numbers look likely to go up.

Conclusion

The profits of Disney, this quarter stood almost at the pre-pandemic levels, however the stock still nose-dived. Even though the theme parks segment more than doubled of what was expected of them, it can be seen that the company is exceedingly dependent on the direct-to-consumer part of the business.