The Disney+ logo is displayed on a TV screen in Paris, December 26, 2019.
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Disney is raising prices on almost all of its streaming offerings as it looks to accelerate profitability for the business.
Commercial-free Disney+ will cost $13.99 per month, a 27% increase, beginning Oct. 12. Disney+ with ads will remain $7.99 per month. Disney will also expand its ad-tier offering to select markets in Europe and in Canada beginning Nov. 1.
Disney is increasing the price of Hulu without ads to $17.99 per month, a 20% price hike. Hulu with ads will also staythe same price, at $7.99 per month.
For comparison, Netflix’s standard plan without commercials is $15.49 per month. Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max is $15.99 per month.
The decision to price Disney+ nearly as high as commercial-free Netflix and Max, and charge even more for Hulu, signals Disney believes its content library can compete with both of those services. When Disney Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger launched Disney+ in 2019, he deliberately set the niche family offering at a low price of $6.99 per month — nearly half the price of Netflix.
Last year, Disney increased the cost of Disney+ by $3 per month. Iger acknowledged he was surprised the price increase led to minimal cancelations of the service.
“We took a pretty significant price increase at Disney+ sometime late in 2022, and we really didn’t see significant churn or loss of subs because of that, which was actually heartening,” Iger said during Disney’s earnings call on Wednesday.
Iger noted that Disney is deliberately trying to steer users toward its ad-supported services by keeping prices for those services the same. The advertising landscape for streaming is healthier than traditional linear TV, Iger added.
Disney has added 3.3 million subscribers for its U.S. advertising-supported service after it launched in December, Iger announced on the call. About 40% of new Disney+ subscribers have signed up for the ad tier, he said.
Disney Executive Chairman Bob Iger.
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Disney is now betting consumers will pay more for its streaming services even as the Hollywood writers and actors strikes threaten its content pipeline in the coming months.
For consumers who want both Disney+ and Hulu without commercials, they can pay $19.99 per month in a new “premium duo” offering — a $12 per month savings. That offer will be available starting Sept. 6. The Disney+ and Hulu bundle with ads will not change from its $9.99 per month price.
Disney also increased the price of its bundle of Disney+ (no ads), Hulu (no ads) and ESPN+ (with ads) to $24.99 per month from $19.99 per month. The bundle of all three products with commercials will be $14.99 per month, an increase of $2 per month.
Disney said Wednesday its streaming division lost $512 million in its fiscal third quarter. Disney+ excluding India’s Hotstar added 800,000 subscribers during the period. Disney+ ended the quarter with 105.7 million Disney+ subscribers, excluding Hotstar, and about 146 million in all.
Disney is also increasing the price of Hulu + Live TV with ads to $76.99 from $69.99 per month. The commercial-free Hulu + Live TV will jump to $89.99 per month from $82.99 per month.
WATCH: Bob Iger will lead Disney through this difficult time, says BofA Securities’ Jessica Reif Ehrlich.
Correction: This story was updated to reflect that the ad-free Disney+ price increase will take effect Oct. 12. A previous version misstated the date.
Apple CEO Tim Cook attends the world premiere of “F1” at Times Square in New York on June 16, 2025.
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Apple reports fiscal third-quarter earnings on Thursday after the bell.
The June quarter is typically Apple’s slowest of the year by sales, ahead of new device launches in September that typically spur the company’s biggest sales surge of the year driven in the December quarter.
Still, Apple is expected to report nearly $90 billion in overall sales during the period, which would be a 4% increase from last year. Analysts expect it to guide for 3% growth in the September quarter.
But there are lots of questions swirling around Apple, whose stock is down 16% so far in 2025.
The biggest question facing Apple is what it will say about tariffs. In May, Apple said it would have about $900 million in additional tariff costs in the June quarter, but that it couldn’t predict beyond that. Apple will likely update investors on how it sees tariffs affecting the September quarter, a key indicator for how President Donald Trump’s trade war is affecting American technology companies.
Apple also said in May that it would manufacture U.S.-bound iPhones in India to avoid tariffs on Chinese imports. But the company’s move upset Trump, who said after Apple’s last earnings call that he didn’t want the iPhone maker building in India. India is in line to receive a 25% tariff as soon as Friday. Apple CEO Tim Cook may update investors on its India pivot on Thursday.
The company held its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June, in which it announced major updates to its software for iPhones and other devices. Apple did not, however, announce major new artificial intelligence products or initiatives, disappointing some analysts. However, some investors believe Apple’s AI stumbles aren’t expected to show up in its results for years.
On the brighter side, Cook will likely shout out the movie “F1,” which is Apple Original Films’ first summer blockbuster and passed $500 million at the global box office last weekend.
Here’s how Apple is expected to do in the June quarter, per LSEG consensus estimates:
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy attends the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 9, 2025.
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Amazon will report second-quarter results after the market close Thursday.
Here’s what analysts surveyed by LSEG are expecting:
Earnings per share: $1.33
Revenue: $162.1 billion
Wall Street is also looking at other key revenue metrics:
Amazon Web Services: $30.8 billion, according to StreetAccount
Advertising: $14.99 billion, according to StreetAccount
The company spooked investors in May when it warned in its earnings report that “tariff and trade policies,” as well as “recessionary fears,” could weigh on second-quarter results.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said at the time that “none of us knows exactly where tariffs will settle or when.” Jassy later said the company hasn’t seen “any attenuation of demand at this point” due to tariffs and that Amazon has taken steps to keep prices steady on its site.
President Donald Trump‘s unpredictable tariff agenda primarily poses a threat to Amazon’s sprawling e-commerce business, which accounts for the bulk of its sales. The core online stores unit is expected to post $58.98 billion in sales, according to StreetAccount. Wall Street is projecting seller services revenue to reach $38.7 billion during the quarter.
Several analysts said the tariff and geopolitical backdrop for Amazon has become more manageable in recent months, which is one of several reasons they’re optimistic about the company’s second-quarter report.
“Through the quarter, the US consumer backdrop has remained supportive as tariff concerns wane and consumers continue to spend,” analysts at Deutsche Bank wrote in a July 22 research note. The firm has a buy rating on Amazon’s stock.
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Trump’s tariffs may be giving Amazon a boost, to some extent.
The Deutsche analysts said it’s “become abundantly clear” that Amazon has gained a greater share of the U.S. e-commerce market in the face of diminished competition from ultra-cheap Chinese online retailers Shein and Temu, which is owned by PDD Holdings.
Both companies have struggled to preserve their grip on American shoppers after the Trump administration ended de minimis, a trade exemption that allowed low-value shipments to enter the country duty-free, and instituted higher tariffs on Chinese imports.
Amazon’s third-quarter guidance will give a view into whether the company expects tariff risks to continue. Analysts are projecting revenue to reach $173.3 billion in the current quarter.
Outside of retail, investors will be keeping a close eye on Amazon’s cloud business. Revenue at AWS in the first quarter grew 17%, which fell short of analysts’ estimates and was the slowest growth in a year. Analysts are projecting about the same year-over-year growth for the second period.
Jassy said in May that the cloud business would have grown faster if it weren’t for capacity constraints caused by shortages of AI chips and other components.
Amazon has pledged to spend up to $100 billion this year, largely on AI-related investments for AWS. Wall Street will be paying attention to whether Amazon reaffirms or boosts that number. AI and cloud competitor Google last week upped its capital spend to $85 billion this year as part of its second-quarter earnings.
Like other major tech companies, Amazon has been laser-focused on AI. During the quarter, Amazon began releasing an AI-upgraded version of its Alexa voice assistant and it launched a new agentic AI group in its skunkworks research and development unit.
The technology is also transforming Amazon’s workforce. In a June note to staff, Jassy said the company’s corporate employee base will shrink in the coming years as it adopts more generative AI tools and agents.
“It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce,” Jassy wrote.
Amazon shares have lagged those of its tech peers this year despite its heavy investments in AI. Amazon’s stock is up 5.4% year to date, while shares of Meta and Microsoft have climbed roughly 20% over the same stretch. Apple, which has struggled with its AI development, is down about 15.5% so far this year.
The logo of semiconductor design firm Arm on a chip.
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Shares of Arm Holdings plunged more than 13% on Thursday after the chip designer offered muted guidance for earnings.
Second-quarter adjusted earnings will be between 29 cents and 37 cents per share, Arm said late Wednesday. Wall Street had projected 35 cents per share.
The company forecast second-quarter revenue of $1.01 billion to $1.11 billion, which was in line with consensus estimates of $1.05 billion.
The concerning outlook was amplified by commentary from Arm CEO Rene Haas, who indicated the company is considering designing its own processors. Arm has made its name selling the architecture behind the chips powering devices made by the likes of Microsoft and Amazon.
“We’re looking now at the viability of moving beyond the current platform to additional subsystems, chiplets or possibly full solutions,” Haas said.
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The disclosure left investors “with more questions than answers,” Wells Fargo analysts wrote in a Thursday research note.
By developing its own chips, the company’s cost structure will likely undergo a “major change,” Needham analysts wrote.
“While we view ARM’s transition from selling process core IP to selling CSS was largely successful, as evidenced in above-market royalty revenue growth, the next transition appears to be a much bigger leap, which will likely come with a bigger price,” the analysts added.
For the fiscal first-quarter, the company posted adjusted earnings per share of 35 cents on revenue of $1.05 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of 35 cents and revenue $1.06 billion.