The Walt Disney Co. will stop reporting quarterly subscriber numbers and ARPU for its streaming platforms Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, as it seeks to put more focus on the profitability of its streaming efforts.
And the company will sunset its standalone Hulu app next year, with plans to fully integrate Hulu and Disney+ in one app experience.
The company revealed the changes in executive commentary from Disney CEO Bob Iger and CFO Hugh Johnston on Wednesday morning.
“We believe quarterly updates on the number of paid subscribers and ARPU have become less meaningful to evaluating the performance of our businesses, and we will no longer report these metrics starting with the first quarter of fiscal 2026 for Disney+ and Hulu and the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 for ESPN+,” the executives write. “While we will no longer disclose subscribers and ARPU, we will provide information on Entertainment Direct-to-Consumer profitability.
“We believe our reporting going forward will better align with changes in the media landscape, the unique nature of our integrated assets, how we operate our businesses, and will reflect how management evaluates the progress and success of our strategic initiatives,” they continued.
Fiscal 2026 begins later this year, with the current quarter being the company’s fiscal Q4.
The change follows a similar move by Netflix, which stopped reporting its subscriber numbers on a quarterly basis earlier this year. Netflix said it would continue to provide an update as it hit certain subscriber milestones, and Disney is likely to do the same.
Iger and Johnston also revealed that with Hulu now wholly owned by Disney, the company will fully integrate Hulu into Disney+, culminating in an entirely new app experience coming in 2026.
“You’re going to end up with a far better consumer experience when those apps are combined by combining all of the program assets of both current apps, and with an improved consumer experience comes the ability to lower churn, which is obviously something that we’re very, very focused on and committed to doing,” Iger said on the company’s earnings call. “We obviously will deliver efficiencies. When these are together, it’ll be on one tech stack as a for instance, one tech platform. We already sell the advertising together, but this will give our sales organization a chance to package them far more effectively than they have before. I imagine down the road, it may give us some price elasticity as well that we haven’t had before, and it also provides us with a tremendous bundling experience.”
To be clear, Hulu will not go away, but it will become Disney’s new general entertainment brand, and will become available within a unified Disney+ app, with the standalone Hulu app sunsetting.
The Hulu brand will also replace the Star tile in Disney+ international markets.
“Hulu will now become our global general entertainment brand. In the fall, it will replace the Star tile on Disney plus internationally,” Iger told investors on the company’s earnings call. “Over the coming months, we will be implementing improvements within the Disney+ app, including exciting new features and a more personalized homepage, all of which will culminate with the unified Disney+ and Hulu streaming app experience that will be available to consumers next year.”
“By creating a truly differentiated streaming offering, we will be providing subscribers tremendous choice, convenience, quality, and enhanced personalization,” the executives write. “This will enhance our ability to continue to grow profitability and margins in our entertainment streaming business through expected higher engagement, lower churn, and advertising revenue potential, as well as operational efficiencies that over time may result in savings that we can reinvest back into the business.”
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