Disney’s streaming platform; Disney Plus will officially launch on the 12th of November 2019, for $7 (707 Kenyan Shillings) a month, and $70 (7,070 Kenyan Shillings) a year if you get an annual subscription. That is according to cnet.com.
Disney revealed the launch date and price on Thursday the 11th of April 2019, while shedding light on the streaming service’s exclusive shows, which will feature a vast library of content, ranging from Pixar to Star Wars, and Marvel Studios to National Geographic. It will also be home to what will definitely be an ever expanding range of original content, from Marvel Studios TV shows such as Falcon and Winter Soldier, to the first live-action Star Wars TV series, and then live-action/photoreal adaptations of animated classics such as Lady and the Tramp.
Read Also : United States Lists Kenya As A Kidnap Hotspot In Latest Travel Alert
Disney Plus’ $7 pricing is a far cry from its rival; Netflix’s $13 (1,313 Kenyan Shillings) monthly fee, which allows users stream to two different devices simultaneously in high definition. Disney Chief Financial Officer Christine M. McCarthy hinted that Disney Plus pricing may increase as the service matures, describing the $7 monthly fee as an “initial” price. The company also stated that it is ikely to bundle Disney Plus with Hulu and ESPN Plus, offering an additional discount if you subscribe to two or three of its streaming options.
On Thursday, Chief Executive at Disney, Bob Iger said “This is an exciting time; it’s also a challenging time,”. He added that “deciding how to navigate this was not difficult for us,”, stating that Disney is focused on its ocean of premium content and the distribution of the content, in different ways.
Investors praising Disney’s move into subscription with Disney Plus, led to a 11.5% increase in the value of the company’s shares during trading, on the 12th of April 2019 as it closed at $130.06 (13,136 Kenyan Shillings) per share, while its rival Netflix’s stock went down more than 4%, closing at $351.14 (35,456.14 Kenyan Shillings) per share.
But even with this development Netflix, still remains the Top Dog.
Disney has predicted that it would reach 60 million to 90 million subscribers by the end of the 2024 fiscal year. Netflix on the other hand, has already risen to nearly 140 million subscribers.
The company, also predicts that its content spending would jump from $1 billion (101 billion Kenyan Shillings) in its first year to $2 billion (202 billion Kenyan Shillings), four years from now. Netflix, by comparison, will spend an estimated $12 billion (a whooping 1.2 Trillion Kenyan Shillings) on content this year alone.
Disney Plus confirmed that the new streaming service will first be available in North America. It will then roll out in Europe from late 2019 to early 2020. Asia-Pacific will be next to get the streaming service, between the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2020, while Latin America will see the service arrive sometime in the fall of 2020. By the end of 2021, Disney Plus, is expected to go completely global.
