BusinessFeb 5, 2025
Disney Beats Earnings Expectations, With A Few Asterisks — Fixing Them Could Be Key To a 2025 Comeback
Media Giant
Noah Weidner
Discover
From 2005 to 2020, Bob Iger presided over an era of unprecedented growth for entertainment and theme park giant Disney. Unfortunately for him, retirement was too short. In Nov. 2022, the 73-year-old returned to replace his ailing successor. This time, under a different set of circumstances — quarreling with virtually all of the things that keep Corporate America up at night.
Disney gets dissed: As if rebounding from the pandemic wasn’t enough for an organization that receives over a third of its revenues from in-person parks and experiences, Disney has also had to walk a tightrope through a starring role in the culture war, incursions by activist investors, and difficulties rebounding from a rough few years. That’s why Disney’s Q1 earnings, announced Wednesday, could be seen as both a celebration of the corporation — or a warning of things to come.
Investors generally celebrate when companies beat on both bottom- and top-line expectations, but stock fell 2.2% after the report, a sign that investors were more focused on the firm’s misses.
Eyes on Iger: Ultimately, all eyes are on Disney in 2025 as CEO Bob Iger seeks a second replacement to helm the House of Mouse when his contract expires in 2026. Between now and then, expectations are high, as is up only 14% over the past year. To mend that underperformance, the media powerhouse will have to stop expected churn from even more Disney+ customers in the coming quarter — and hope for better weather at its parks, which suffered from two major hurricane shutdowns in the latest quarter.
