San Francisco (AFP)

The success of the "Enchanted Kingdom" streaming platforms overshadowed its real-world problems in 2020, and heralds a radiant recovery in 2021, thanks to popular franchises on Disney +, resumption of sporting events, and vaccination against Covid-19.

Disney +, ESPN + (sports), and Hulu services had 146 million subscribers at the end of the year, according to a earnings release released Thursday.

Disney + alone, which started operating in November 2019, has nearly 95 million subscribers.

The platform has greatly benefited from containment measures, the huge catalog of the Californian group and low prices compared to competitors.

By comparison, Netflix, the pioneer and leader in subscription video streaming (SVOD), recently surpassed 200 million users worldwide.

“Among the recent product launches, Disney + has been one of the most successful,” said Eric Haggstrom, analyst at eMarketer.

This achievement partly makes up for the difficult year the entertainment giant has just gone through because of the pandemic, which has resulted in the closure of theme parks and cinemas.

- My lovely vaccine -

In all, Disney only earned $ 17 million in net profit during the holiday season, down from $ 2.1 billion a year ago.

But the Californian group "will continue to grow in streaming, while its parks, its television and cinema branches will quickly recover thanks to vaccination and the expression of demand that has been contained for months," commented Eric Haggstrom.

With the second waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, some amusement parks had to close their doors, such as the Disneyland of Paris and Hong Kong.

Others remained open, but with limited capacity.

They have sometimes had to refuse entry to additional visitors.

The "parks, experiences and derivatives" branch generated only 3.6 billion dollars in revenue, half less than last year in the same quarter.

“We are operating at 35% of our total capacity,” explained Christine McCarthy, the company's chief financial officer, at a conference for financial analysts.

She said her teams were focused on ways to generate more revenue per visitor: "when people have a great time in our parks, they spend more money".

Within the group's distribution branch, which represents the bulk of revenue, the traditional television segment remained stable with revenue of 7.7 billion, despite cancellations and postponements of programming.

- Franchises galore -

The platform segment, on the other hand, generated $ 3.5 billion in revenue in the past quarter, up 73% year-on-year.

The holiday season was marked by several popular releases, including, at the end of October, the second season of The Mandalorian, a series set in the Star Wars universe.

Disney + has aroused enthusiasm thanks to its catalog and those of Pixar, Marvel, and National Geographic studios.

The platform has also set itself the objective of broadcasting new content every week and around a hundred new titles per year.

"We have to keep a very high value for money, and there is no better way to do that than to run the franchise machine to release new titles every month," said Bob Chapek , the boss of the company.

"Content is the main factor in acquiring and retaining new subscribers," said Christine McCarthy, before confirming that the profitability target for the streaming service was maintained for fiscal year 2024.

For the current year, Disney has planned to remain flexible in terms of going to the cinema or on the internet.

For example, "Black Widow is slated for theaters, but we will be closely monitoring theatrical reopening and consumer appetite to decide whether to reconsider our decision or not," said Bob Chapek.

© 2021 AFP