The Walt Disney (DIS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending April 1, 2023

May 10, 2023 4:30 p.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day and welcome to The Walt Disney Company’s Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Alexia Quadrani, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Alexia Quadrani - SVP of IR

Good afternoon. It’s my pleasure to welcome everybody to the Walt Disney Company’s second quarter 2023 earnings call. Our press release was issued about 25 minutes ago and is available on our website at www.disney.com/investors. Today’s call is being webcast and a replay and a transcript will also be made available on our website. Joining me for today’s call are Bob Iger, Disney’s Chief Executive Officer; and Christine McCarthy, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Following comments from Bob and Christine, we will be happy to take some of your questions. So with that, let me turn the call over to Bob to get started.

Robert Iger - CEO

Thank you Alexia and good afternoon everyone. Allow me to digress for a moment to congratulate Universal for the tremendous success of Super Mario Brothers. It certainly proves people love to be entertained in theatres around the world and it gives us reason to be optimistic about the movie business.

Now turning to our results. We're pleased with our accomplishments this quarter, which are reflective of the strategic changes we've been making throughout our businesses. We're also proud of what we continue to deliver for consumers, from movies to television to sports, news and our theme parks. A few recent highlights include Marvel Studios Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, which topped the global box office in its opening weekend with $289 million. The first round of the NBA playoffs was the most watched ever across Disney networks, and we've been averaging 5 million viewers throughout the first 22 games up 15% versus the comparable point in last year's playoffs.

ABC continued its run as the number one entertainment broadcast network for the fourth consecutive season. And at our domestic parks, we continued to improve the guest experience with our recent pricing changes, and exciting new attractions, including the reimagined Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland, and TRON Lightcycle Run at Walt Disney World.