For Apple and Disney+, getting people to sign up isn’t the hard part

Disney got off to a rocky start with streaming glitches, but the outages ultimately stemmed from a good problem: overwhelming demand. More people streamed Disney from a phone or tablet on launch day than watched Amazon.com Inc’s Prime Video, which had a 13-year head start. — AP

At long last, Walt Disney Co launched its video-streaming platform, Disney+, last Tuesday. Ten million people signed up in the first 24 hours, a stunning feat considering the deluge of rivals flooding the market. By comparison, it took HBO Now about four years to reach that milestone.

The rapid adoption is a testament not just to the power of Disney’s brand but also to a business strategy that stands in stark contrast to this month’s other big streaming debut, Apple Inc’s TV+. Disney sold a US$7 (RM29)-a-month service using a colossal back catalogue of content and a single episode of a new buzzy series based on a well-known franchise, Star Wars. Apple was forced to bet big on a slate of expensive-and so far, not widely acclaimed-original movies and TV shows.