(Reuters) – Walt Disney Co shares soared to a record high after the entertainment firm said its new streaming service, Disney+, had been met with “extraordinary consumer demand,” reaching 10 million sign-ups in its first day.
The strong performance, which added $18 billion to its market capitalization, appears to establish Disney as a leading player in the streaming wars that pit it against industry leader Netflix Inc, Amazon.com Inc’s Prime Video service, Apple Inc’s Apple TV+ and AT&T Inc’s forthcoming HBO Max service.
Combined with Disney’s other streaming businesses – Hulu, which has 26.8 million subscribers, and ESPN+, which serves 3.5 million subscribers – the company now serves 40.3 million viewers in the United States, compared to about 60 million for Netflix.
Although Disney’s day one numbers were more than three times the size of some forecasts, it was not immediately clear how many of these new customers were from free promotions.
Disney+, which launched in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands on Tuesday, was hit with technical glitches that the company said were caused by higher-than-expected demand.
The service costs $7 per month and features roughly 500 movies and 7,500 TV episodes from the company’s deep family entertainment catalog, as well as new programming.
