“Once we gave individuals a chance to have a extra seamless expertise between Disney+ and Hulu, we noticed engagement rising,” Iger stated at the moment. “And we’d hope that once we take this subsequent step, which is principally full integration, that that engagement will go up much more.”
The preliminary integration of Hulu, which beforehand used a special tech platform than the 12-year-younger Disney+ app, required the remodeling of “every thing from login instruments to promoting platforms, to metadata and personalization methods,” in addition to transferring over 100,000 particular person property/art work, The Verge reported in March. On the time, Disney stated that it was nonetheless engaged on re-encoding all of Hulu’s video recordsdata to work on Disney+ in order that there could possibly be one grasp library.
The up to date app coming in 2026 appears to be the fruits of all this work. Iger additionally pointed to work across the app’s suggestions, together with what customers see on the Disney+ homepage. Moreover, the app has added extra streams, reminiscent of one which performs The Simpsons 24/7.
The up to date app additionally follows Disney’s buy of Comcast’s remaining stake in Hulu. (Disney ended up paying about $9 billion for it, in comparison with the roughly $14 billion that Comcast needed.)
Throughout at the moment’s earnings name, Iger stated the up to date consumer expertise will assist the profitability and margins of Disney’s streaming enterprise (which additionally consists of ESPN+) by boosting engagement, decreasing subscriber churn, rising promoting income, and driving operational efficiencies.
Hulu nonetheless has worth
It appears doubtless that Disney will finally attempt for everybody to subscribe to a beefed-up Disney+ that includes stuff that was once on Hulu. However there’s additionally worth in preserving Hulu round for some time.
In keeping with Disney’s Q3 2025 earnings report [PDF], Hulu has 55.5 million subscribers. That makes Hulu lower than half the dimensions of Disney+ (127.8 million subscribers), however it additionally implies that ending Hulu subscriptions would put Disney prone to dropping thousands and thousands of streaming subscribers. Right this moment, although, it already makes little monetary sense to purchase standalone subscriptions to Disney+ or Hulu. A subscription begins at $10 per 30 days for every app. A subscription to a Disney+ and Hulu bundle is barely $11/month. In fact, Disney may change the way it costs its streaming companies at any time.
