Disney has announced plans to spend $60 billion on its parks, experiences and products division over the next 10 years to turbocharge growth.
In a presentation to Wall Street analysts and investors yesterday (19 September), Disney CEO Bob Iger said: “We’re incredibly mindful of the financial underpinning of the company, the need to continue to grow in terms of bottom line, the need to invest wisely so that we’re increasing the returns on invested capital, and the need to maintain a balance sheet, for a variety of reasons.
“The company is able to absorb those costs and continue to grow the bottom line and look expansively at how we return value and capital to our shareholders.”
Disney’s planned investment is nearly double compared to the prior 10-year period. In May, Iger said the company had plans to spend $17bn on Walt Disney World over the next 10 years.
Disney to double parks spending
During the presentation, Disney parks chairman Josh D’Amaro said: “We have an ambitious growth story that is supported by a proven track record and a bold vision for the future of our parks business.”
Noting its new Frozen and Zootopia-themed lands, Disney said in a statement that it will add “even more characters and franchises, including some that haven’t been leveraged extensively to date” to its parks.
“We have a wealth of untapped stories to bring to life across our business,” said D’Amaro. “Frozen, one of the most successful and popular animated franchises of all time, could have a presence at the Disneyland resort. Wakanda has yet to be brought to life. The world of Coco is just waiting to be explored. There’s a lot of storytelling opportunity.”
“We stand alone when it comes to scale,” he added. “And while our scale is impressive, we have no shortage of space or regions of the world in which to tell new stories.”
“Untapped stories to bring to life”
Disney has more than 1,000 acres of land to expand its theme parks, which is equivalent to about seven new Disneyland parks.
As Disney expands, it will be able to reach more fans and create new ones. According to its internal research, there is “an addressable market of more than 700 million people with high Disney affinity it has yet to reach with its parks”.
“In fact, for every one guest who visits a Disney park, there are more than ten people with Disney affinity who do not visit the parks,” the company said.
“Throughout our history, we’ve created enormous growth by investing the right amount of capital into the right projects at the right moment,” said Iger. “We are planning to turbocharge our growth yet again with a robust amount of strategic investment in this business.”
Images courtesy of Disney
