CEO Bob Iger credits parks & resorts, studio, Disney+ for expectations-beating earnings
Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger has credited his entertainment conglomerate’s parks and resorts, studio and new subscription-based video on-demand streaming service Disney Plus for an expectations-beating first-quarter 2020 earnings report.
He was talking to CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” ahead of the earnings call on Tuesday. Boorstin had asked what drove the better-than-expected results.
“Well, we had a great quarter,” said Iger, according to the interview’s unofficial transcript US and Global News received from NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC through its television arm, NBCUniversal Broadcast, Cable, Sports and News. “Parks and Resorts, particularly led by our domestic parks, very strong. Studio added two more billion-dollar movies to cap off a record year, a year for the ages. Over 11 billion dollars in Box Office from Disney Studios alone. And of course, the launch of Disney Plus, where we announced today that we had 26.5 million by the end of the quarter.”
The Disney CEO added that that is “just a start tremendous start” for the streaming service, which “is a product and a strategy that is extremely important to the company today and in the future.”
Boorstin asked Iger if the better-than-expected subscription numbers bring any changes to his original goal of 60 to 90 million subscribers by 2024.
“Well, it’s obviously a very good start, but we’re not updating our guidance today,” said CEO Bob Iger. “We will say something on the call about subs between the end of the quarter, the end of December and where we are as of yesterday. But we’re not updating our guidance at this point. We’re only at it for a quarter.”
Asked if Disney saw churn after the streaming service’s flagship show, “The Mandalorian,” which has been entirely released, was over, Iger said there was no “significant churn from that.”
When answering if he plans on investing much more in original programming in order to bring in more subscribers, Iger said there will be an increase in the investment, but added that “this will be never what I’ll call a pure volume play. It will be about high-quality brand content.”
When Boorstin asked if he could give any particular number on how much Disney is going to be spending on original programming, Bob Iger said that his company is not updating any guidance on that.
The full interview of the Disney chairman and CEO can be watched on CNBC’s website, here.
According to a Yahoo Finance article on MSN.com, the main numbers from the first-quarter 2020 earnings report of Disney, compared to Bloomberg-compiled consensus estimates, include a $20.86 billion revenue vs. a $20.81 billion expected revenue and $15.3 billion Y/Y and a $1.53 adjusted earnings per share vs. a $1.46 expected share earnings and $1.84 Y/Y.
Image credit - Angela George (CC BY-SA 3.0)
