Disney will cut a further $2bn in costs as CEO Bob Iger looks to enter a new period of building at the storied company.
Having already cut $5.5bn this year Iger said there were no plans for more redundancies on top of the 7,000 already announced, and intimated the savings would come from the beleaguered linear TV operation.
Iger told investors on the fourth quarter and full year earnings call on Wednesday that Disney’s streaming businesses remained on course to achieve profitability by Q4 2024.
The streaming business reported a positive 72% net loss swing to $387m for the period ending September 30, compared to $1.4bn in the year-ago period.
Disney+ added nearly seven million global core subscribers in Q4, raising the level to 150.2m – comprising 112.6m (46.5m in North America, 66.1m internationally excluding India-based Hotstar), plus 37.6m from Hotstar.
Key drivers were Elemental, Little Mermaid and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3., original series Ahsoka and the Korean original series Moving.
Hulu subscriptions reached 48.5m. Disney announced last week that it will buy the remaining third of Hulu.
Revenue climbed 5% year-on-year to reach $21.2bn, slightly below Wall Street forecasts. However advertising revenue dropped.
Net income was $264m equating to 14 cents per share, comparing favourably to $162m and nine cents a share a year ago.
Interim CFO Kevin Lansberry said the company expected to spend $25bn on content over the next year with a sizeable chunk going into acquiring sports rights.
Iger noted in the call with investors that the company will not licence core brands like Marvel and Stars Wars to Netflix in the way that Warner Bros Discovery has done to bring in extra revenue.
However he said the company was in talks with Netflix on other content.
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