UPDATE: Disney+ has officially announced the launch. Read more here.
Disney Plus looks like it’s coming to the Middle East next year.
On an earnings call on Thursday, Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek said that Disney Plus’s rollouts in certain markets such as Eastern Europe was being pushed from late 2021 to summer 2022. The reasoning for this, he said, is to coincide with the market roll out in “parts of the Middle East and Africa,” Variety reported.
It is not known which parts of the Middle East he was referring to.
Disney Plus content is currently found exclusively on OSN in the Middle East region, though this mainly accounts for Disney Plus originals and does not include the broader Disney Plus library, which includes Disney content from past and present that are not Disney Plus originals, such as TV series and films.
It is not known how long Disney Plus’s deal with OSN is for, but this comment from Disney implies that it will be finished by Summer 2022. The Disney Plus on OSN partnership began in the first half of 2020.
Disney Plus in other markets is currently one of the most popular streaming services on earth, with 116 million subscribers worldwide as of July 6. In the last three months, Disney Plus added 12.4 million in the markets that it operates.
For comparison, Netflix boasts 209.2 million subscribers, whereas Amazon Prime has 175 million Prime members who have used its streaming services within the last year.
In the US, the Disney Plus streaming package is $7.99 a month, a dollar increase from its launch price, which was $6.99 a month.
Disney Plus currently has a hugely popular slate of content that is available exclusively on OSN, including the Marvel original series such as Loki, WandaVision and the just-launched What If…, as well as the Star Wars series The Mandalorian.
It is not known how, if the Disney Plus streaming services does launch in the wider Middle East, what will become of the theatrical exclusivity of some films such as Luca, which opened on streaming in the US.
