Disney+ Comes Bundled With Hulu and ESPN+ at $12.99 Per Month
- Walt Disney Company announces its intention to bundle Hulu and ESPN+ with Disney+ for $12.99/month.
- This offering goes directly against Netflix and Amazon Prime, with the corresponding packages being at $15.99.
- Disney+ enters the market with aggression going after a solid establishment of their position.
Disney announced their plan to launch their long-anticipated Disney+ service on November 12, bundled with the Hulu and ESPN+ streaming services. This pricing is very competitive, so the new service will enter the market with great impetus. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are more expensive, while the upcoming HBO Max is rumored to move somewhere around $16 to $17 per month. ESPN+ alone costs $4.99/month right now, while Hulu sets back subscribers by $5.99 for each month. This means that the Disney+ would come at an absolute additional cost of just a dollar, so we’re talking about an excellent deal here. Those who want Disney+ as a standalone service, however, will be able to get it for $6.99 per month.
According to what is known so far, Disney is planning a global launch of this bundle, but since Hulu isn’t available everywhere in the world, it is still unclear how this is going to work. Right now, both Hulu and ESPN+ are partially owned by Disney, and subscribers love them for their rich programming, quality of content, and type of broadcasts. ESPN+ in particular offers MLS games, boxing matches, covers PGA Tour golf, Grand Slam tennis tournaments, cricket games, and even international rugby. Seeing it as a whole, Hulu, ESPN+ and Disney+ is a complete package.
Whether or not this initial offering will be available for long is also not known at this time, but the entrance of Disney is very aggressive, and it should be. As we discussed last month, Netflix is having trouble continuing their strong growth for the first time ever, which shows that price raises and market segmentation has taken its toll. Right now, the stakeholders will have to put it all in as the market is taking its final form and their positions getting solidified. The competition will culminate throughout 2019, and the action theater concerns the whole world and not just the US or Europe.
One of the critical elements that play a vital role in that part is the number of investments that each service will put into the creation of original content. On that front, the Walt Disney Company reported earnings of $8 billion at the global box office from their Studios so far this year, an increase of 33% in revenues compared to last year’s quarter. On the other side, there is a decrease of 51% in their net income which is attributed to their efforts to effectively integrate the 21st Century Fox assets and complete their overall strategic transformation.
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