By Maria Armental 
 

Walt Disney Co. trades 6% lower at $163.43 a day after fourth-quarter results and ahead of its Disney+ Day, which marks the two-year anniversary of its flagship streaming service.

The event starts Friday and will highlight new programming as well as exclusive on-platform specials from Pixar Animation and Marvel studios and other perks for subscribers, and comes as Disney launches its flagship service in South Korea and Taiwan. The service is expected to be available in Hong Kong as well starting on Nov. 16.

The streaming service's international expansion is seen as key for the company to hit projections of 230 million to 260 million paid Disney+ subscribers by end of fiscal 2024.

On Wednesday, Disney reported a slowdown in Disney+ subscriber sign-ups in the most recent quarter, largely due to a decline in Disney+ Hotstar subscriptions.

Disney+ Hotstar subscriptions, the company said, accounted for about 37% of the roughly 118.1 million Disney+ paid subscriptions as of Oct. 2.

Company officials pointed to seasonality of the business and said that Disney+ Hotstar is included in the overall Disney+ guidance, including the 230 million to 260 million paid Disney+ subscribers by the end of fiscal 2024 and an expectation that it be profitable.

Company officials said that given the timing of content releases as well as the planned international launches, Disney+ subscriptions are expected to ramp up in the second half of the current business year.

Disney swung to a fourth-quarter profit of $159 million from a loss of $710 million a year earlier, while revenue rose 26% to $18.53 billion.

JPMorgan lowered its December 2022 price target to $220 from $230, citing lower fiscal year 2023 estimates.

 

Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 11, 2021 13:22 ET (18:22 GMT)

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