Disney Streaming Growing By 1 Million New Subscribers Each Day

We’ve previously reported that Disney+, the company’s affordably-priced new streaming service, accomplished in one day what took HBO four years by signing up 10 million subscribers in just 24 hours. Now, the New York Post has gotten its hands on the latest subscriber estimates, and if the figures are accurate, this would be great news for the House of Mouse, and bad news for Netflix.

According to Apptopia, a data provider that has been monitoring downloads and in-app purchases, the streaming app has been downloaded more than 15 million times, which equates to more than one million new subscribers a day since the launch. Most who download the app will go on to purchase at least one of the paid options, the company said. There are also purchases made over the Disney+ website that Apptopia was unable to catch, suggesting that these are lowball numbers.

The service has brought in roughly $5 million in its first 13 days of operating, Apptopia said.

According to Wall Street tech analyst Dan Ives, the numbers suggest that Disney+ will remain a “legit competitor” to Netflix

“This shows the company is gonna be a legit competitor to the likes of Netflix, despite the skeptics that continue to doubt the House of Mouse,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told The Post. “The pricing, the content and the bundling was just a pure genius strategy from Iger and Disney,” Ives said, referring to Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger.

Of course, that’s bad news for Netflix shares, which have struggled in recent months – though there’s been some respite since its Q3 earnings report –  as investors have finally begun to envision a scenario where competitors wrest the crown away from Netflix, diminishing its growth prospects and raising the odds of a default for a company that has burned billions of dollars on what some have complained is mostly unwatchable content.

As a reminder, the biggest risk for Netflix (and Disney, and all their streaming competitors), temember the unprecedented cash burn, because while streaming may be a great growth platform it still has to turn a profit, anywhere.