Entertainment giant Walt Disney continues to post strong growth in its important streaming business, but groans under high costs.
In the three months to the end of September, profits rose just one percent year-on-year to $162 million, the company said on Tuesday.
Wall Street's expectations were missed, with the stock initially falling by more than five percent in after-hours trading.
Sales also disappointed despite an increase of nine percent to 20.2 billion dollars.
According to the latest quarterly figures published on Tuesday, the plus for the Disney+ streaming service was twelve million subscribers, exceeding analysts' expectations.
Overall, according to him, around 164 million subscriptions were active at Disney + at the end of the third quarter.
Disney's rival Netflix had a good 223 million customers at the end of the quarter.
However, the numbers aren't directly comparable since Netflix only offers one video service and Disney's balance sheet benefits from combo deals, known as bundles.
In order to further increase the number of subscribers, Disney is planning, among other things, a partially advertising-financed, cheaper subscription model that is to start in the USA on December 8th.