Disney Execs Seek To Assure Jittery Investors They Are On Track To Deliver A “Sustainably Profitable” Streaming Operation

deadline.com:

Addressing Wall Street analysts during Disney’s quarterly earnings call, the company’s top executives sought to emphasize their progress toward attaining streaming profitability. “With our expectation that peak losses are behind us, direct-to-consumer results should improve going forward as we lay the foundation for a sustainably profitable business model,” Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy said during a touch-base with Wall Street that felt muted compared with the many when-youwish-upon-a-star rallies it has staged in recent years.

The call followed the release of fiscal fourth-quarter earnings results showing stellar growth in subscribers to Disney+ but also total revenue and earnings well below Wall Street expectations.

Operating DTC losses also totaled $1.5 billion in the quarter, though Disney+ added 12.1 million subscribers over the prior quarter to reach 164.2 million globally.

Shares in Disney slumped as much as 9% in after-hours trading as investors processed the news, seeming to express alarm at the tradeoff of financial challenge for subscriber growth, a dynamic that has walloped the stocks of Netflix and other streaming players in recent months.