Disney Plus Drew 28.6M Paid Subs Through Monday, Debuts March 29 in India

The Disney Plus streaming service, launched in November, had 26.5 million paid subscribers at the Dec. 29 close of fiscal Q1 and added 2.1 million more through Monday, said Disney CEO Bob Iger on a Tuesday earnings call. Disney intends to announce paid subs “as of the end of the quarter we’re reporting on,” he said. “Conversions from free to pay and churn rates were better than we expected,” said Iger. He said Disney won't disclose "specifics" on those metrics. The “next big priority” is launching Disney Plus internationally, he said. The service will debut March 24 in eight Western European markets, including the U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Italy, he said. Belgium, the Nordics and Portugal “will follow this summer,” he said. Disney Plus will launch March 29 in India through Disney’s existing Hotstar service, said Iger. “We see this as a great opportunity to use the proven platform of Hotstar to launch the new Disney Plus service in one of the most populous countries and one of the fast-growing economies.”