Leaked Disney+ financial data could shed light on recent price hike

A data leak at Disney suggests that the streaming service Disney+ generated revenue of around $2.4 billion in the fiscal quarter that ended March 30. Disney does not normally disclose how much revenue its individual streaming services generate, which makes this number particularly interesting.

Leaked data

In August, Disney confirmed it was investigating the leak of “over a terabyte of data from one of the communications systems it uses.” In a report this week, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said it had looked at files leaked by a hacking group called Nullbulge that included “a range of financial and strategy information,” apparent login credentials for parts of Disney's cloud infrastructure, and more. The leak includes over “44 million messages from Disney's workplace communications tool Slack, over 18,800 spreadsheets, and at least 13,000 PDFs,” according to the WSJ.

“We decline to comment on unverified information that The Wall Street Journal allegedly obtained through the illegal activities of a criminal,” a Disney spokesperson told the WSJ.

2.4 billion US dollars

According to the WSJ, the financial information came from “documents shared by employees detailing the company's operations,” and it goes on to say, “It is not official data of the kind Disney discloses to Wall Street, and it may not reflect final financial performance for any specific period.” This means we should take these numbers with a grain of salt.

“Internal spreadsheets suggest Disney+ generated more than $2.4 billion in revenue in the March quarter,” the WSJ reported, referring to Disney's second fiscal quarter of 2024. “That underscores how important Hulu is as a revenue generator, especially as Disney tries to buy out Comcast's stake in the streaming service and as both sides argue about its value.”

The release noted that the $2.4 billion figure represents “about 43 percent” — 42.5 percent to be exact — of Disney’s reported direct-to-consumer (DTC) revenues of $5,642,000,000 total this quarter. [PDF]. In its Q2 report, Disney combined Disney+, Hulu and Disney+ Hotstar under its DTC umbrella. DTC revenues in the second quarter increased 13 percent compared to the same quarter last year.

Additionally, subscriber numbers for Disney+ and Hulu increased in the second quarter compared to the previous year. The leaks did not specify how much revenue Disney's streaming businesses made in the third quarter, but Disney reported that DTC revenue increased to $5.8 billion. [PDF].

However, just before the third-quarter earnings announcement, Disney announced price increases for Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ of up to 25 percent. As we wrote at the time, the price increase seemed to be an attempt to push people toward bundle deals that offer a combination of Disney+, Hulu, and/or ESPN+ (bundles are designed to make subscriber churn less likely). Disney CFO Hugh Johnston tried to convince us that Disney's streaming catalog “earned” the streaming price increases.

But recently leaked figures shed some more light on the situation.