Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) investors got some major news about the company’s new ESPN streaming service on Tuesday afternoon after the company reported mixed first-quarter results.
Disney reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.89 on revenue of $15.35 billion. EPS beat consensus analyst estimates of $1.61, but revenue missed consensus estimates of $15.45 billion.
However, Disney stock jumped more than 2 percent in after-hours trading after CEO Bob Iger told CNBC that the company is expected to launch its updated ESPN app, which will include live sports streaming, sometime in the spring. Iger says the new service will cost $4.99 per month.
Iger isn’t commenting on rumors of a potential competing bid for the Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (FOXA) assets Disney recently acquired, and said as far as he knows the Fox acquisition is still on track. Earlier this week, CNBC reported that a source familiar with the matter has said Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) is considering a higher bid than Disney’s $52 billion offer for Fox’s assets.
Disney’s parks and resorts business was its top-performing segment in the quarter, reporting revenue of $5.15 billion compared to consensus estimates of $4.86 billion. Media and networks ($6.24 billion), studios ($2.50 billion) and consumer and interactive ($1.45 billion) all reported revenue below expectations.
For Disney investors concerned about cord-cutting and subscriber loss, Iger says the company is seeing positive trends among younger TV customers.
“There are signs of young people coming into multichannel television – people that were once thought to be ‘cord-nevers’ – are starting to adopt the packages that are less expensive, Hulu for example. …That’s a very good sign,” Iger says. Upon the completion of the Fox deal, Disney would hold a 60 percent ownership stake in Hulu.
CFRA analyst Tuna Amobi says Disney is firing on all cylinders ahead of the highly-anticipated launch of its own streaming service to compete with Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) in 2019.
“We see…
Click here to continue reading
Want to learn more about how to profit off the stock market? Or maybe you just want to be able to look sophisticated in front of your coworkers when they ask you what you are reading on your Kindle, and you’d prefer to tell them “Oh, I’m just reading a book about stock market analysis,” rather than the usual “Oh, I’m just looking at pics of my ex-girlfriend on Facebook.” For these reasons and more, check out my book, Beating Wall Street with Common Sense. I don’t have a degree in finance; I have a degree in neuroscience. You don’t have to predict what stocks will do if you can predict what traders will do and be one step ahead of them. I made a 400% return in the stock market over five years using only basic principles of psychology and common sense. Beating Wall Street with Common Sense is now available on Amazon, and tradingcommonsense.com is always available on your local internet!
