Mickey Mouse wants to change his narrative.
The Walt Disney Company rarely provides guidance about what investors can expect in future earnings. On Thursday, however, the entertainment giant shared growth expectations with investors — not just for 2025, but also for 2026 and 2027.
Entertainment streaming, for instance, will generate roughly $700 million in operating profit in 2025, up from $253 million this year, Disney said. Total per-share earnings will increase by “double digit” percentages in 2026 and 2027, compared with the previous years, in part because of new cruise ships and theme park expansions.
“We’ve got visibility,” Hugh F. Johnston, Disney’s chief financial officer, said.
Disney has desperately needed a new story line on Wall Street: Shares have languished, even amid a broader market upturn, in large part because of uncertainty, something investors loathe, about the company’s future.
“There were some people who wanted to say that Iger brought the magic back,” said Doug Creutz, an analyst at Cowen & Company, referring to Robert A. Iger’s return as Disney’s chief executive in late 2022. “Well, let’s hold on a minute. There has actually not been a whole lot to get people excited.”
Disney continues to have big problems, the largest being the atrophying traditional television business. Operating profit at Disney’s entertainment networks, including ABC, FX, National Geographic and the Disney Channel, plunged 38 percent in the most recent quarter compared with a year earlier, the company said in its earnings report on Thursday. Operating profit at ESPN fell 6 percent, with Disney citing lower viewership and higher costs for college football rights.
But the company’s earnings report also revealed significant progress in two other areas that have worried investors: movies and streaming.
“Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine” helped Disney’s film division — the company’s creative heart — roar back to life, as it swung to a $316 million profit from a loss of $149 million a year earlier. “Moana 2,” set for release on Nov. 26, and “Mufasa: The Lion King,” a prequel scheduled to arrive on Dec. 20, are both expected to be major box-office hits.
Disney’s streaming business (Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+) delivered $321 million in profit, a nearly sevenfold increase from the three months that ended in June, which was the first time Disney’s direct-to-consumer unit as a whole had any profit. Not long ago, the company’s streaming unit was hemorrhaging $1 billion a quarter.
Disney+ and Hulu delivered 14 percent ad revenue growth in the quarter. Disney+ ended the quarter with 122.7 million subscribers (excluding India), an increase of 4.4 million from June. Hulu had 52 million subscribers, roughly flat.
Disney said the two services would achieve an operating margin of about 10 percent in 2026, not including Hulu Live, a type of cable TV hookup.
As expected, the company’s theme park division had a subpar quarter. In August, Mr. Johnston had warned that some Americans, battered by years of high inflation, were pulling back on vacation spending. He also said Disney’s overseas theme parks, like Disneyland Paris, would struggle, including from competition by the Olympic Games.
Overseas, operating profit fell 32 percent, to $299 million. Despite flat attendance, Disney’s domestic properties squeezed out 5 percent growth, to $847 million, through higher prices.
Disney predicted a theme park recovery in the next fiscal year, saying that operating income for the division as a whole would increase as much as 8 percent, compared with 4 percent in 2024, despite launch costs for a new cruise ship and the impact of two hurricanes in Florida.
“As we look out to early bookings, they are consistent with growth year over year,” Mr. Johnston said.
Companywide, adjusted per-share income increased 39 percent from a year earlier, to $1.14, on a par with analyst expectations. Revenue totaled $22.6 billion, up 6 percent, slightly ahead of expectations.
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