Update: Disney topped earnings expectations after the bell Tuesday, February 4, thanks to an unexpected surprise from its Disney+ app, which blew away analysts forecasts. Now, shares are up 3% in what’s already been a great day for investors. The story continues as originally written.
Today will be the first earnings call for The Walt Disney Company ($DIS) after the launch of its streaming service Disney+.
Disney entered a new era in mid-November, by putting all of its content onto a digital platform for one cheap monthly subscription price. So far all we know about Disney+ is what Bob Iger has told us; on the first day of release, ten million people signed up. Otherwise, we know next to nothing.
Analysts at Zacks Investment Research, based on analysts' forecasts, came to the consensus EPS forecast for the first quarter of 2020 as being $1.43. How will the Coronavirus affect Shanghai Disneyland attendance? Did Disney+ subscribers grow and eat into Netflix's ($NFLX) market? Is ESPN getting a decent ROI or is it costing the company too much? And how is the ESPN+ Hulu bundle working out?
We don't have any of those answers, just our data, but maybe we can learn more about how the company is doing to gain insight into how it'll perform down the road.
Disney+ Ratings
First and foremost, what do people actually think of Disney+? From the data we've collected from its initial release, they like it a whole lot. On both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, the average rating is above a 4.0, and that's after hundreds of thousands of reviews poured in after the launch of the service. All that love for The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda, finally, in raw tangible data we can visualize.
The House of the Mouse
On top of its digital expansion, Disney is also hiring like crazy. Job openings are up 52% since August, and there isn't any slowing down the House of the Mouse.
While every Disney social account is up across the board (including Facebook and Instagram, not shown here), you can see the success of Disney+ right out of the gate. It started at 600,000 followers and just cracked a million fans a week ago. Once the Marvel TV series begin airing we expect that number to almost double, that's how powerful a brand like Marvel Studios is.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales, and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue, and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.
