Disney vs. Netflix streaming war: The battle to be No. 1
The streaming battle for original content and subscribers is heating up as The Walt Disney Co. is set to roll out its new Disney Plus video on demand service on November 12th. The media giant said the bundled package, which also includes ESPN, and Hulu, will cost $12.99.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DIS | THE WALT DISNEY CO. | 115.07 | +5.94 | +5.44% |
| NFLX | NETFLIX INC. | 823.96 | -13.30 | -1.59% |
The House of Mouse is looking to dethrone the current king of the streaming industry, Netflix, with its $6.99 monthly plan and content from major entities such as Marvel, Lucasfilm’s Star Wars, Pixar and National Geographic.
“Disney has such a wonderful way to monetizing content that Netflix doesn’t have,” Gerber Kawasaki CEO Ross Gerber said Tuesday during an interview on “The Claman Countdown."
Kawasaki, who owns shares in both entertainment companies, has a positive outlook for Disney because of its ability to generate revenue from every piece of content it creates.
But Mediatech Capital Partners managing partner Porter Bibb said Netflix will survive the launch of Disney’s streaming service while Disney spends hundreds of millions of dollars to build the video-on-demand service.
“When they launch Disney+, it will still lose a couple of hundreds of millions of dollars a year until 2024, then it will start making money,” he said. Disney missed profit and sales expectations for the quarter due to the spending on digital.
Kawasaki argued that Disney’s content portfolio and its marketing ability to identify its customers will generate tens of millions of subscribers at the launch of their streaming service.
“The first day that this launches it will have 'Captain Marvel' and 'Avengers: End Game' on it,” he said.
Netflix currently has 139 million subscribers worldwide and 58.5 million accounts for U.S. subscribers. The streaming giant offers three plans starting at $9 per month and ending at $16.
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Disney shares fell more than 5 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday after the media company's third-quarter results.
