Disney's Stock Rips On Q4 Sales Beat, 73.7M Streaming Subscribers

Walt Disney Co DIS reported fourth-quarter earnings, which saw a continued impact from the COVID-19 pandemic hitting several lines of the business.

Earnings: Revenue for Disney was $14.71 billion in the fourth quarter, which beat the street consensus of $14.2 billion. The company reported a loss of 20 cents per share, which was better than the consensus of a loss of 71 cents per share.

The company reported 11% year-over-year growth to $7.2 billion for its media network segment, led by 11% growth for the cable segment.

Disney saw its parks, experiences and products segment report a 61% year-over-year drop in revenue to $2.6 billion.

Studio entertainment revenue fell 52% year-over-year to $1.6 billion, hit by the lack of theatrical releases versus last year’s blockbusters “The Lion King” and “Toy Story 4” in the same period.

Direct to consumer and international segment revenue increased 41% to $4.9 billion.

Disney also saw a $591 million positive change from the increased valuation in its stake in DraftKings Inc DKNG, which it recognized in the quarter.

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Growth In Streaming: Last month, Disney announced it was doubling down on its commitment to its streaming business.

The company ended the year with 73.7 million paid subscribers for Disney+, which came in about 8 million ahead of estimates; 10.3 million paid subscribers for ESPN+ and a total of 36.6 million Hulu subscribers.

“The real bright spot has been our direct to consumer business, which is key to the future of our company,” said CEO Bob Chapek.

Operating loss improved for the segment from $751 million to $580 million.

For the full year, the direct to consumer segment saw $17.0 billion in revenue, which was up 81% year-over-year. This was the second-largest segment for the company by revenue behind only the $28.4 billion for the company’s media division.

Impact Of COVID-19: The COVID-19 impact led to $2.4 billion lower operating income for the parks segment and $6.9 billion lower for the fourth quarter and full year, respectively.

In the fourth quarter, Disneyland in California and all Disney Cruise Line ships remained closed. Other parks were open part of the quarter with limited capacity.

DIS Price Action: Shares of Disney are up 6% to $143.24 in after-hours trading.