America's leading mass media and entertainment company Walt Disney Co. Has announced the layoffs on Wednesday (February 8). According to reports, Disney has decided to lay off 7,000 employees, or 3.6% of its global workforce, in an effort to cut costs and make its streaming business profitable.
As of October 1, Disney has 2.20 lakh employees in its total global workforce, of which 1.66 lakh are in the US. According to reports, Disney wants to save $ 5.5 billion, i.e. about 45 thousand crore rupees in its cost by retrenchment of employees. The company has taken this big decision just after the announcement of Disney's recent quarterly results.
In the first quarter ending December 31, 2022, Disney + Hotstar lost 3.8 million paid subscribers. The company has suffered a loss of $ 1 billion (8.25 thousand crore rupees) due to the decrease in subscribers. In this quarter, Hotstar has been able to add only 2 lakh new subscribers from the US and Canada. Currently Hotstar has a total of 46.6 million i.e. 46 million subscribers.
This restructuring in the company is taking place under the leadership of Disney's new CEO Bob Iger. Disney now wants to focus more on its core brands and franchises. Disney's restructuring is being done in the face of slowing subscription growth and increasing competition for streaming viewers. Not only this, Disney's decision has come in response to criticism from activist investor Nelson Peltz. Nelson had said that the company was spending too much on streaming.
