Pursue
Disney is cutting around 7,000 jobs
Disney is also making savings: the group wants to cut a number of jobs. photo
© John Raoux/AP/dpa
Even if price increases slowed down the important streaming business, the Disney Mickey Mouse group was doing better than expected. Nevertheless, thousands of jobs are said to be lost.
Despite good business in the past quarter, the entertainment giant Walt Disney is planning significant cuts in personnel.
About 7,000 jobs — about 3 percent of the global workforce — are to be cut as part of a program designed to reduce annual costs by $5.5 billion. This was announced by Disney boss Bob Iger on Wednesday evening at the presentation of the quarterly figures. The news was well received by investors – they temporarily let the share rise by around 10 percent in the after-hours trading.
In view of “global economic challenges”, Iger announced a major restructuring of the group. Disney recently earned better than expected: In the three months to the end of December, profits increased by eleven percent year-on-year to $ 1.3 billion (1.2 billion euros). Revenues grew by eight percent to 23.5 billion. With this, Disney exceeded the forecasts.
Disney+ loses subscribers
However, the group lost subscribers to its most important streaming service Disney + after significant price increases. At the end of the quarter, the video service that competes with Netflix had 161.8 million users worldwide – a good one percent fewer than three months earlier. Disney’s other streaming services, Hulu and ESPN+, posted modest gains. In addition, the division’s loss of $1.1 billion was lower than feared. In the previous quarter, the minus was $ 1.5 billion.
Deep red in the highly competitive streaming business was one of the reasons why CEO Bob Chapek resigned in November after less than two years and longtime CEO Iger came out of retirement. However, Iger is also under pressure – the large investor Nelson Peltz, known for aggressively meddling in management, is demanding higher returns and influence on the board of directors. Disney has so far turned down him and his hedge fund Trian, but must avoid a shareholder revolt.