HBO Max international expansion drives revenue and user growth, now over 140 million total subscribers<\/p>\n
A sign for the Warner Brothers Discovery Techwood Turner Broadcasting campus in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. March 18, 2026. REUTERS\/Megan Varner\/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights <\/p>\n
Warner Bros Discovery’s<\/em>\u00a0streaming unit posted better-than-expected quarterly revenue growth on Wednesday, as HBO Max<\/em>‘s expansion overseas boosted \u200bsubscriber growth and engagement.<\/p>\n The company’s first-quarter net loss widened to $2.92 billion, including \u200ba $2.8 billion termination fee paid to Netflix<\/em>. The fee was paid \u2060by Paramount Skydance<\/em>\u00a0under the companies’ $110 billion merger deal, but was recorded by Warner \u200bBros<\/em> as an obligation under the agreement.<\/p>\n The merged entity would have more than 220 \u200bmillion streaming subscribers based on current figures, adding scale to help the combined company compete better with Netflix<\/em> and Disney.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Warner Bros Discovery<\/em> ended March with more than 140 million streaming subscribers, while \u200bParamount+<\/em> had 79.6 million.<\/p>\n The international rollout of HBO Max<\/em> is largely complete, the \u200bcompany said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Line graph showing streaming revenue growth for Warner Bros Discovery<\/p>\n HBO Max is “really the linchpin” of Warner Bros’ <\/em>growth plans, CEO David Zaslav told analysts \u200con \u2060a conference call. He added that the platform would be a “huge benefit” to Paramount<\/em> once the merger closes.<\/p>\n Overall, the streaming unit posted revenue growth of 9% to $2.89 billion, compared with a 7.6% rise expected by analysts, according to data compiled by \u200bLSEG.<\/p>\n Total advertising revenue fell \u200b7%, hurt by \u2060the absence of National Basketball Association<\/em> content and continued declines in domestic linear TV audiences.<\/p>\n For the second quarter, the company \u200bexpects the lack of NBA <\/em>content to create a 16% \u200bconstant-currency headwind \u2060to streaming advertising revenue.<\/p>\n “If the Paramount<\/em> takeover goes as planned, PSKY-WBD will boast the strongest US sports offering outside of Disney<\/em>, which could pull ad dollars back,” said Ross \u2060Benes, \u200bsenior analyst at Emarketer.<\/em><\/p>\n The company reported revenue of $8.89 billion \u200bin the first quarter, largely in line with estimates of $8.9 billion.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HBO Max international expansion drives revenue and user growth, now over 140 million total subscribers A sign for the Warner Brothers Discovery Techwood Turner Broadcasting campus in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. March 18, 2026. REUTERS\/Megan Varner\/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights Warner Bros Discovery’s\u00a0streaming unit posted better-than-expected quarterly revenue growth on Wednesday, as HBO Max‘s expansion overseas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/warner-bros1778154671-0\/warner-bros1778154671-0-640x480.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}