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How many subscribers did Disney+ lose in 2025 and when was the decline reported?
Executive summary
Disney+ lost about 700,000 subscribers in the first quarter of fiscal 2025 (the three months ending December 2024), a decline reported in Disney’s Q1 2025 earnings coverage in early February 2025 (reports published Feb. 5–6, 2025) [1] [2]. Other reporting later in 2025 cites separate, much larger short-term cancellation totals linked to the September 2025 Jimmy Kimmel controversy — roughly 1.7 million cancellations across Disney’s streaming services during Sept. 17–23, 2025 — but that figure covers Disney+, Hulu and ESPN combined and is from later, distinct reporting [3] [4].
1. What the early‑2025 decline was and when it was reported
In Disney’s Q1 fiscal 2025 results (covering October–December 2024), Disney+ subscribers fell by roughly 700,000 to 124.6 million; that decline was reported in news stories published Feb. 5–6, 2025 after the earnings release (MacRumors, MobileSyrup, Fast Company and others) [1] [5] [2]. Those pieces all tie the drop to Disney’s Q1 2025 earnings announcement and note Disney had warned of a “modest decline” for that quarter [2] [6].
2. Why the 700K drop happened, according to the coverage
Contemporaneous reporting connected the 700,000‑subscriber decline to recent price increases and a crackdown on password‑sharing; analysts and reporters framed the loss as expected and modest relative to Disney+’s earlier growth (MacRumors, MobileSyrup, Fast Company) [1] [5] [2]. Disney itself had anticipated a modest decline and signaled more modest downward pressure on subs through 2025 [6].
3. How that Q1 metric was affected by reporting changes (international nuance)
Some coverage warns that headline subscriber counts can shift from accounting or structural changes — for example, removal of Disney+ Hotstar (India) from Disney’s consolidated subscriber totals after corporate restructuring can make year‑over‑year numbers look different on paper (What's On Disney Plus) [7]. Yahoo/other outlets also emphasized that the company expected declines but that streaming revenue and ARPU rose, partially offsetting subscriber churn [8] [9].
4. The much larger 1.7M cancellation figure — different event, later date
Reporting from September–October 2025 attributed a spike of roughly 1.7 million cancellations across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN to a short period of subscriber backlash tied to Jimmy Kimmel’s temporary suspension; those accounts date to late September 2025 and explicitly cover Sept. 17–23, 2025 (KTLA, Mashable, PennLive, Mashable’s sourcing of Marisa Kabas) [3] [4] [10]. Those later figures are a separate episode from the Q1 FY2025 decline and refer to combined cancellations across all three streaming products, not solely Disney+ [3] [4].
5. How to reconcile the two numbers and what they mean
The 700,000 figure is a corporate, quarterly subscriber change for Disney+ reported with Q1 FY2025 earnings in early February 2025 [1] [2]. The ~1.7 million figure appears months later and is sourced to a reporter citing a Disney source for a high‑short‑term cancellation spike across multiple services during a one‑week window in September 2025 [3] [4]. The two are not inconsistent because they measure different things (quarterly net subs for Disney+ vs. short‑term, cross‑service cancellations) and come from different reporting periods [1] [4].
6. Limits of available reporting and open questions
Available sources do not provide a verified public Disney breakdown showing exactly how many of the ~1.7 million cancellations were Disney+ subscribers versus Hulu or ESPN+, nor do they show whether many of those cancellations were later re‑acquisitions; the 1.7 million number is reported via an individual journalist’s Disney source and then amplified by outlets [3] [4]. Likewise, sources report Disney anticipated further modest declines in 2025, but they do not provide a detailed, audited list of churn drivers by market and plan beyond general references to price hikes and paid‑sharing enforcement [2] [8].
7. Bottom line for a reader tracking Disney+ subscriber trends
If you mean “how many subscribers did Disney+ lose in the early 2025 earnings report?” the answer in coverage is ~700,000 subscribers, reported with Q1 FY2025 results in early February 2025 [1] [2]. If you’re asking about the much larger cancellations story tied to September 2025 controversy, that reporting cites ~1.7 million cancellations across Disney’s three streaming services during Sept. 17–23, 2025 — a separate event and a cross‑service figure reported in late September 2025 [3] [4].