Disney+ is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming media service owned by The Walt Disney Company and operated through the direct-to-consumer business of Disney Entertainment. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced by Walt Disney Studios and Disney Television Studios, featuring dedicated content hubs for Disney's flagship brands, including Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, Hulu and ESPN in select regions. Disney+ also offers original and exclusive films and television programming.
Disney+ relies on technology developed by Disney Streaming, formerly known as BAMTech, which was established in 2015 as a spin-off of MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM), the digital media arm of Major League Baseball. Disney acquired a controlling stake in BAMTech in 2017 and subsequently placed it under Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International as part of a corporate restructuring ahead of its acquisition of 21st Century Fox. Development of Disney+ drew on BAMTech's technology, which also powered ESPN+ following its launch in 2018. Production of original films and television series for Disney+ began in late 2017, ahead of the expiration of Disney's streaming distribution agreement with Netflix in 2019.
Following the acquisition of 21st Century Fox, Disney introduced Star as a general entertainment hub within Disney+ in February 2021 and launched the standalone Star+ service in Latin America that August. Star+ was discontinued in 2024, with its content incorporated into Disney+, while the Star hub was replaced internationally by Hulu in October 2025, except in Japan.
Disney+ launched on November 12, 2019, in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands, followed by Australia, New Zealand and Puerto Rico later that month. The service expanded to several European countries in March 2020 and to India in April through Star India's Hotstar platform, which was rebranded as Disney+ Hotstar. Additional European markets received Disney+ in September 2020, followed by Latin America in November. Its international expansion continued into Southeast Asia beginning in 2021, followed by Northern and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and parts of Africa in 2022. In February 2025, Disney+ Hotstar in India merged with JioCinema to form JioHotstar, which subsequently expanded to additional international markets. The Disney+ Hotstar brand was fully phased out in October 2025, when its remaining Southeast Asian services were rebranded as Disney+.
Upon its launch, Disney+ received positive reviews for its content library but faced criticism over technical issues, missing titles and alterations to certain films and television series. Disney reported more than 10 million sign-ups within the first day of operation. As of September 2025, Disney+ had 131.6 million paid subscribers worldwide.
History
2015–2019
In late 2015, Disney launched a streaming service in the United Kingdom called DisneyLife to test the streaming market. It was later launched in the Philippines on May 25, 2018. The UK version was replaced by Disney+ on March 24, 2020, while discontinued in the Philippines on April 1 that year.
In August 2016, Disney acquired a minority stake in BAMTech (a spin-off of MLB Advanced Media's streaming technology business) for $1 billion, with an option to acquire a majority stake in the future. Following the purchase, ESPN announced plans for an "exploratory [over-the-top] project" based on its technology (ESPN+) to supplant its existing linear television services. On August 8, 2017, Disney invoked its option to acquire a controlling stake in BAMTech for $1.58 billion, increasing its stake to 75%. Alongside the acquisition, the company also announced plans for a second, Disney-branded direct-to-consumer service drawing from its entertainment content, which would launch after the company ends its existing distribution agreement with Netflix in 2019. Not long after, Agnes Chu, story and franchise development executive at Walt Disney Imagineering, was the first executive appointed for the unit, as senior vice president of content. Chu led two projects to launch the new unit. First, Disney needed to verify exactly what content could be physically and legally made available through a streaming service right away, which meant physically reviewing all content in Disney's vaults that had not recently undergone restoration, and reviewing "binders of pieces of paper with legal deals" to identify potential obstacles. Second, Chu met with leaders of Disney's various content-producing divisions to start brainstorming which projects would be appropriate for release on a streaming service rather than in movie theaters. Chu later left in August 2020.
In December 2017, Disney announced its intent to acquire key entertainment assets from 21st Century Fox. Intended to bolster Disney's content portfolio for its streaming products, the acquisition was completed on March 20, 2019.
In January 2018, it was reported that former Apple and Samsung executive Kevin Swint had been appointed the senior vice president and general manager, reporting to BAMTech CEO Michael Paull, who leads development. In March 2018, Disney's top level segment division was reorganized with the formation of Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International, which then included BAMTech, which contains "all consumer-facing tech and products". In June of the same year, longtime Disney studio marketing chief, Ricky Strauss, was named president of content and marketing, however reporting to chairman of Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International Kevin Mayer. In January 2019, Fox Television Group COO Joe Earley was named executive vice president of marketing and operations. In June 2019, Matt Brodlie was named as senior vice president of international content development. In August 2019, Luke Bradley-Jones was hired as senior vice president of direct to consumer and general manager of Disney+ for Europe and Africa.
On November 8, 2018, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that the service would be named Disney+ and that the company was targeting a launch in late 2019. A September launch was reportedly planned, but on April 11, 2019, Disney announced that Disney+ would launch on November 12, 2019, in the United States. Disney stated that it planned to roll the service out worldwide over the next two years, targeting Western Europe and Asia-Pacific countries by late 2019 and early 2020, and Eastern Europe and Latin America during 2020. The timing of international launches is subject to the acquisition or expiration of existing streaming rights deals for Disney content. On August 6, 2019, Iger announced that it would offer a streaming bundle of Disney+, ESPN+ and the ad-supported version of Hulu for $12.99 per month available at launch. At the D23 Expo in August 2019, Disney opened subscriptions to Disney+ at a discounted rate for three years.
On September 12, 2019, a trial version of Disney+ became available in the Netherlands with limited content available. This testing phase lasted until the official launch on November 12, when trial users were switched to a paid plan. Disney+ became available for pre-order in September in the United States with a 7-day free trial upon launch.
In October 2019, Disney released a video that ran for three hours and eighteen minutes on YouTube to showcase their launch lineup. It was also reported that Disney would ban advertisements for competitor Netflix from most of its TV platforms, except ESPN.
Disney+ launched on November 12, 2019, Midnight Pacific Time in the three initial launch countries. The services had some issues the first day with logging in (about 33% of the problems), accessing specific content (about 66%), setting up profiles and watch lists. Some of the issues were due to third-party devices.
On November 18, 2019, an investigation by ZDNet discovered that thousands of users' accounts were hacked using keystroke logging or info-stealing malware. Their email addresses and passwords were changed, "effectively taking over the account and locking the previous owner out", and their login information was put up for sale on the dark web.
2020s
On March 12, 2020, Vanessa Morrison, who previously served as President of Fox Family and 20th Century Animation, was appointed President of Streaming for Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production and currently oversees the development and production of Disney+ film content from The Walt Disney Studios for both Disney Live Action and 20th Century Studios. Morrison reports directly to President of Walt Disney Pictures Sean Bailey.
On October 12, 2020, Disney announced a reorganization of their media business with a greater focus on streaming. They are planning to add more content for Disney+ and their other streaming platforms (such as Hulu) in the future.
On December 10, 2020, Disney announced that a year after the launch of Disney+, it had over 86.8 million subscribers. It was later announced that as of January 2, 2021, the platform had over 94.9 million subscribers. In January of the same year, Ricky Strauss, who led the service's content curation and marketing efforts, left the company.
In March 2021, Disney announced an increase to the streaming service's pricing that would take place on March 26, 2021. In the second quarter of 2021, Disney+ added 8.7 million subscribers.
In August 2021, Disney CEO Bob Chapek suggested that, eventually, Disney+ could be merged with Hulu (as in other markets), citing that the bundled approach had less subscriber churn than the individual services alone, but that "there may also be certain constraints that we're under that could at least, from a short-term standpoint, limit our ability to do what long term we might feel was ideal, but frankly we don't know what's ideal yet."
On March 4, 2022, Disney announced they will plan to launch a low-cost ad-supported version of Disney+ by late 2022 in the United States, with that version also expanding to other international territories in 2023. Disney later announced on August 10, 2022, that the ad-supported version of Disney+ launches on December 8, with more than 100 advertisers. Costing US$7.99 per month, with the ad free version of Disney+ receiving a price hike of US$3.
In May 2022, the company reported it gained 7.9 million subscribers over the first three months of 2022. In August 2022, it was announced that the combined total of subscribers across all Disney streaming platforms including Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ had surpassed Netflix with roughly 221 million.
In January 2023, Disney+ received its first Academy Award nomination, for the Italian film Le pupille in the Best Live Action Short Film category. In February 2023, Disney reported a total of 161.8 million Disney+ subscribers worldwide at the end of 2022, with a gain of 200,000 in Canada and the United States, but a net loss of 2.4 million worldwide attributed to the loss of streaming rights to Indian Premier League cricket in India.
On May 18, 2023, it was announced that Disney+ and Hulu would remove nearly 60 original films and series on May 26 to "cut costs". The news sparked some backlash, mostly towards the initial decision to remove Howard, the documentary on the life of songwriter Howard Ashman, on the eve of Pride Month and the release of the live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid. However, it was confirmed the next day that the film will remain available on the service. On July 1, more original films and series were removed globally, including Crater, which was released seven weeks prior. However, on September 26, 2023, it was revealed that six of the removed original films: Crater, Better Nate Than Ever, Flora & Ulysses, The One And Only Ivan, Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made and the 2022 remake of Cheaper by the Dozen were released for purchase on multiple digital platforms including Amazon Prime Video, iTunes, Vudu, and Google Play, a move that some considered as historic and unconventional for a streaming service.
Following a carriage agreement with Spectrum in September 2023, Disney+ became available to Spectrum TV Select subscribers for no extra cost.
The ad-tier version was later launched in Canada and parts of Europe by November 1, 2023.
On December 6, 2023, Disney added a Hulu content hub to Disney+ as a beta for U.S. Disney Bundle subscribers, in a similar manner to the Star content hub used internationally. In March 2024, Disney+ debuted an updated teal logo design, which Jess Weatherbed at The Verge believed was preparation for the service's integration with Hulu. The new animated logo for the streamer to serve as its splash screen and to open original series and films was also revealed that same month, with a short orchestral theme composed by Ludwig Göransson. The interface was also updated to match the new teal color scheme, which was dubbed "Aurora" as an homage to Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty (1959).
On March 27, 2024, the Hulu content hub officially exited beta. On June 26, 2024, content from the separate Star+ service began to be integrated into Disney+ in Latin America, ahead of its discontinuation the following month. On July 25, 2024, Disney announced a partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery to offer Disney+, Hulu and Max as a bundle in the United States.
After a woman died in a Disney Springs restaurant, Disney argued that if a user signs up for a Disney+ subscription or a free trial, the user permanently relinquishes their right to a jury trial in any disputes with the company.
On October 22, 2024, following a similar move by Netflix and Spotify, Disney discontinued support for billing Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions via the App Store on iOS platforms, citing Apple's revenue sharing rules for in-app purchases.
In August 2025, Disney announced plans to fully merge Hulu into an updated version of the Disney+ platform in 2026, although the two services would remain separate subscriptions. In addition, it was announced that Hulu would replace Star as its general entertainment brand for international markets; the rebranding took effect on October 8, 2025, which was accompanied by an update to the Disney+ user interface with a focus on recommendations and more visual content. However, in May 2026, Disney announced that there were no plans to shut down the separate Hulu app.
In late March 2026, Disney+ announced plans to launch an advertisement-supported subscription tier for their Australian and New Zealand markets.