Walt Disney Co swung to a surprise quarterly profit on Thursday, as ‘The Mandalorian’ and ‘Soul’ lifted its fast-growing streaming business, outweighing pandemic worries about its hobbled theme park operations.
Investors overlooked a 53 per cent decline in park revenue in the quarter and welcomed Disney+ streaming reaching 94.9 million subscribers. Shares rose 3.1 per cent to $194 after they closed at an all-time high in regular trade.
The ‘Star Wars’-inspired ‘Mandalorian’ series and Pixar’s animated ‘Soul’ movie helped position the year-old Disney+ as a credible threat to the dominance of Netflix Inc in the streaming video wars.
Including Hulu and ESPN+, Disney’s paid streaming membership topped 146 million.
‘Disney+ has been a massive success and is a testament to Disney’s brand equity and expertise in storytelling,’ eMarketer analyst Eric Haggstrom said. ‘This has been one of the most successful consumer product launches in recent memory.’
The company posted earnings of 32 cents per share for October through December. Wall Street had expected a loss of 41 cents per share, according to the average forecast of analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
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