What to anticipate from Disney’s first earnings report since Bob Iger’s return

By Maggie Last updated Feb 8, 2023

What to anticipate from Disney’s first earnings report since Bob Iger’s return, While investors are interested in subscriber growth for Disney’s streaming services during the company’s fiscal first quarter, Wednesday’s earnings call will be dominated by the return of CEO Bob Iger.

His reappointment follows a challenging year for the company’s shares as rising streaming costs and a limited slate of theatrical releases cut into revenues, and comes amid a bitter proxy battle with activist investor Nelson Peltz.

Since this is Iger’s first earnings call since the beginning of 2020, his comments will likely significantly impact the media conglomerate’s direction. Investors are waiting for him to lay out his strategy for restructuring the corporation.

Since his return, Disney’s stock has beaten the performance of all but two of the Dow Industrials components. The stock price increase of about 20% is similar to that of Dow Inc. and slightly lower than that of Boeing. And Disney’s increase is roughly five times the S&P 500 (4% vs. 1%).

Here are the predictions made by experts:

According to a poll of analysts by Refinitiv, the estimated earnings per share is 78 cents.
The forecast from Refinitiv is $23.37 billion, which is a significant increase over last year’s $19.08 billion.
Subscriber tally for Disney+ so far: StreetAccount estimates put the number at 161.1 million.

While Bob Chapek was still at the helm, Disney tried to lower investors’ expectations for the new fiscal year by projecting slower-than-expected revenue growth of less than 10% in the most recent quarter. The slowing development of the Disney+ platform was mentioned as part of the warning.

The company’s direct-to-consumer division, which includes its streaming services, lost $1.5 billion in business last November. A $1.2 billion loss is expected, less than what was lost last quarter.

To that end, industry experts anticipate that Disney+ will have 161.1 million subscribers by the end of the first fiscal quarter of 2020, a decline of almost 3 million from the previous quarter. Some users may have canceled due to the price increase that was implemented recently.

Suppose the holidays are as busy as they usually are. In that case, Disney’s domestic and foreign theme parks should see an increase in attendance, ticket sales, and operating profit compared to the previous year. It also released the massively successful “Avatar: The Way of Water” in theatres in December, which will have contributed to an increase in the company’s box office takings compared to the previous year.