Analyst: Disney+ to pass Netflix in subscribers in 2025; Apple TV+ at 35.6 million subs in 2026

Disney+ will have more subscribers than Netflix by 2025 and Apple TV+ will have 35.6 million users in 2026, according to an analyst’s latest forecast.
Disney+
Georg Szalai for The Hollywood Reporter:

Research firm Digital TV Research shared the prediction in a report, projecting that the number of subscribers to Disney+ would reach 284.2 million in 2026, down from a 294.0 million estimate the firm had made earlier in the year. In 2026, Netflix will` have 270.7 million subscribers, down from an earlier estimate of 286.0 million.
“Three platforms will control nearly half the world’s SVOD subscriptions by 2026,” according to Digital TV Research. “Disney+ will be the biggest winner, overtaking Netflix in 2025. Disney+ will add 140 million subscribers between 2021 and 2026 to bring its total to 284 million. About 121 million of Disney+’ subscribers (43 percent of its total) in 2026 will be in the 13 Asian countries under the Hotstar brand.”
Amazon Prime will hit 243.4 million users, the research firm predicts. Behind that, it estimates that China’s Tencent will end 2026 with 98.7 million users, China’s iQiyi with 76.8 million and HBO with 76.3 million subscribers. Meanwhile, Apple TV+ will record 35.6 million users then.

MacDailyNews Take: Predicting subscriber totals five years out to a decimal place is an interesting, if not meaningless, proposition, especially when one hit series can dramatically change the fortunes of an entire streaming service (see: Ted Lasso, The Mandalorian, etc.). Note also that Apple TV+’s content library is poised to grow significantly over the coming months and years.
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