After more than three decades, Jessie, Buzz Lightyear and Woody are still moneymakers for Walt Disney Co., as \u201cToy Story 5\u201d ticket sales and merchandise helped power the company\u2019s fiscal third quarter earnings.<\/p>\n
The Burbank media and entertainment giant reported revenue of $25.2 billion for the three-month period that ended June 27, up 7% from the prior year. Income before income taxes totaled $3.6 billion, a 14% increase compared to the same time period in 2025, while operating income exceeded previous guidance and rose 21% to $5.6 billion.<\/p>\n
Earnings per share, excluding certain items, were $2.06, a 28% improvement from $1.61 a year ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cDecades of [intellectual property] investment have built deep fan connections that translate into strong financial results,\u201d Disney Chief Executive Josh D\u2019Amaro and Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston wrote in a Wednesday letter to shareholders. \u201cOur results show a unique ability to engage consumers at scale, both digitally and physically, even amid macro uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n
The toys are back in town \u2014 and making money<\/p>\n
Disney and Pixar\u2019s \u201cToy Story 5\u201d opened in the final days of the quarter and has since crossed $1 billion in global box office receipts, giving the company\u2019s entertainment division a lift that helped offset a theatrical stumble from Disney and Lucasfilm\u2019s \u201cStar Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,\u201d which opened over Memorial Day weekend.<\/p>\n
Entertainment revenue was reported at $11.3 billion, a 6% jump compared to 2025, while operating income totaled $1.7 billion, up 64% from last year. Disney-owned 20th Century Studios\u2019 \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2\u201d also contributed to a strong quarter in theaters with more than $691 million at the worldwide box office, nearly $471 million of which came from international ticket sales.<\/p>\n
\u201cToy Story 5\u201d also boosted merchandise sales, which are housed under Disney\u2019s experiences division, to their strongest quarter of year-over-year growth in 20 quarters \u2014 a reminder that toys and licensing tied to a Pixar release start selling well before the movie reaches theaters. On Disney+, the \u201cToy Story\u201d franchise has now clocked more than 2 billion hours of streaming, the company said.<\/p>\n
Disney\u2019s entertainment streaming business was another point of growth in the third quarter, as revenue totaled $5.5 billion, up 11% compared to last year, with much of that coming from higher rates and more subscribers, the company said. Operating income for the streaming business was $712 million, compared to $329 million a year ago.<\/p>\n
Parks and cruise attendance is up, but international visitors remain an issue<\/p>\n
Attendance across Disney\u2019s theme parks, cruise line and Aulani resort and spa in Hawaii was up 4% in the third quarter, with visitation at its U.S.-based theme parks 3% higher than the previous year\u2019s quarter, the company said.<\/p>\n
Disney noted that Walt Disney World in Florida had a \u201cstandout\u201d quarter with \u201chealthy core attendance increases\u201d from domestic visitors and annual passholders, as well as summer promotions and new experiences that helped fuel interest.<\/p>\n
The company did continue to \u201cface headwinds\u201d from international attendance at U.S.-based parks, but said that trend has \u201cmoderated\u201d relative to the effect seen in the fiscal second quarter.<\/p>\n
Disney\u2019s experiences division reported $9.97 billion in revenue, an increase of 10% compared to the prior year. Its operating income totaled $3 billion, up 20%. Four percentage points of that growth came from a $100 million tariff refund that quarter, which reversed tariff payments made earlier in the fiscal year, the company said.<\/p>\n
High ratings for sports<\/p>\n
It was the most-watched fiscal third quarter since 2016 across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, powered by the NBA and NHL playoffs. The NBA postseason drew its largest first-round audience in 33 years, though under the league\u2019s new rights deal Disney now shares that inventory with NBC and Amazon.<\/p>\n
Disney\u2019s sports division, which includes ESPN, reported revenue of $4.5 billion, a 4% increase compared to the previous year. Operating income totaled $858 million, a 17% slide from 2025, driven largely by higher programming costs tied to the timing of new rights deals. ESPN acquired NFL Network and RedZone from the league in February, and the channels have been dark on Comcast\u2019s Xfinity systems since April 30, when the carriage agreement expired and the two sides failed to reach new terms.<\/p>\n
On the horizon<\/p>\n
As expected, Disney told investors it has agreed to sell its 50% stake in A+E Global Media for about $1.2 billion in cash to an affiliate of current co-owner Hearst Corp. The company said it plans to use the funds to repurchase additional Disney shares, upping its target for fiscal 2026 repurchases to be at least $9 billion.<\/p>\n
D\u2019Amaro and Johnston also reiterated the goal for Disney+ to be the company\u2019s \u201cdigital centerpiece,\u201d though their letter revealed few new details other than the continued integration of Hulu into the streaming platform, \u201cbetter leveraging sports in the U.S.\u201d and investing in international programming. <\/p>\n
In the long-term, D\u2019Amaro and Johnston said the plan is to \u201cevolve Disney+ into a comprehensive membership ecosystem,\u201d noting that more information would be released next spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After more than three decades, Jessie, Buzz Lightyear and Woody are still moneymakers for Walt Disney Co., as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[2006,1887,18,117,13499,262635,19,11387,17,327,13968,15378,100060,262636,29195,225508,11980,3257,262637],"class_list":["post-621677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-company","tag-disney","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-espn","tag-fiscal-third-quarter-earning","tag-ie","tag-income","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-quarter","tag-revenue","tag-theme-park","tag-toy-sale","tag-toy-story","tag-u","tag-walt-disney-co","tag-year","tag-year-over-year-growth"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}