Disney beats Q3 estimates on Toy Story 5, parks, and doubled streaming profit

Disney posted $25.2 billion in Q3 revenue, up 7%, with operating income up 21% to $5.6 billion. Streaming profit more than doubled, Toy Story 5 cleared $1 billion, and the stock jumped. Buried in the good quarter: an $812 million writedown.

Disney turned in a strong quarter, and Wall Street liked it enough to push the stock up about 7%.

The company reported fiscal third-quarter results Wednesday, Josh D’Amaro‘s first full quarter as CEO. Revenue hit $25.2 billion, up 7% from a year ago. Operating income climbed 21% to $5.6 billion. Adjusted earnings per share jumped from $1.61 to $2.06, beating what analysts expected.

The quarter covered March through June. Nearly every part of the company pulled its weight, and one old bet got quietly written off. Here’s the breakdown.

Disney Experiences: parks and cruises still carry the company

The parks-and-cruises division did what it always does, which is print money.

Experiences brought in nearly $10 billion in revenue and more than $3 billion in operating income, up 20% from last year. Worldwide park attendance rose 4%, domestic attendance rose 3%, and Disney squeezed 5% more revenue out of the average guest.

Two new cruise ships, the Disney Destiny and Disney Adventure, were fully online for the first time, boosting stateroom capacity roughly 50% over last year. Disneyland Paris got a lift from its new World of Frozen land.

One soft spot: international travel to Disney’s US parks is still a bit down, though the company says the trend is improving.

Entertainment: Toy Story 5 does the heavy lifting

The movie-and-TV side had its best quarter in a while, and it’s mostly one toy cowboy’s doing.

Entertainment revenue came in at $11.3 billion with $1.7 billion in operating income, a 64% jump over last year. Toy Story 5, which has now cleared $1 billion worldwide, drove the studio, with The Devil Wears Prada 2 helping.

Disney was honest about the misses, too. It admitted The Mandalorian and Grogu and the live-action Moana both came in below expectations at the box office, while insisting both still matter to the long game.

Disney+: no subscriber count, but profit more than doubled

Disney still won’t tell you how many Disney+ subscribers it has. It stopped reporting that number a while back. What it will tell you is that the money got a lot better.

Streaming operating income more than doubled to $712 million, up from $329 million a year ago. Overall streaming revenue rose 11% to $5.5 billion, and subscription revenue climbed 15%.

D’Amaro’s line on the platform: “Our ambition is for Disney+ to become the digital centerpiece of The Walt Disney Company.”

Sports: the one segment that went backward

Not everything was up. Disney’s Sports division, built around ESPN, was the lone drop.

Sports generated $4.5 billion in revenue but $853 million in operating income, a 17% decline from last year. Disney recently folded the NFL Network into ESPN, and CFO Hugh Johnston noted the NFL is renegotiating its media rights deal earlier than planned, trading Disney more revenue in exchange for dropping an opt-out clause down the line.

The $812 million the good quarter is quietly carrying

Here’s the number that didn’t make the highlight reel, and it’s the one worth understanding.

Disney is selling its 50% stake in A+E Global Media, the home of A&E, History, and Lifetime, to co-owner Hearst for $1.2 billion in cash. That was announced this week and confirmed in the earnings.

What’s less advertised is that Disney took an $812 million impairment on that same investment. An impairment is an accounting admission that something is worth a lot less than the books said. So in the same report where Disney beats estimates, it’s also formally writing down the value of a cable business it’s now getting rid of.

Both things are true at once. The core company, parks and movies and streaming, is humming. And a piece of old-Disney, the cable bundle, just got marked down by the better part of a billion dollars on the way out the door.

That gap is basically the whole D’Amaro strategy in one report.

The rest of the numbers worth knowing

A few more figures from the quarter that fill out the picture:

• Disney raised its share buyback target to at least $9 billion for fiscal 2026, up from $8 billion, funded partly by the A+E sale

• A roughly $100 million tariff refund landed in the quarter, reversing earlier trade payments

• D’Amaro is also managing fallout from OpenAI shutting down Sora in March, the app that was supposed to host AI-generated Disney shorts, and layoffs at Epic Games

• Disney used earnings day to announce the TikTok content deal and the move of its consumer products division under the studios

D’Amaro’s summary of it all: “Decades of IP investment have built deep fan connections that translate into strong financial results.”

Strip the corporate polish off and the quarter says something simple. The Disney people actually go to and watch, parks and movies and streaming, is doing great. The Disney that lives inside a cable box is the part getting sold, written down, and left behind.

Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.

Pirates and Princesses is your destination for Disney news, theme park updates, and the pop culture you love. From Disney cruises and travel tips to Disney fashion, food, collectibles, and movie news, PNP covers it all. Visit us at piratesandprincesses.net for daily coverage. Follow PNP on Facebook and Instagram, and listen to the Pirates & Princesses podcast on Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

Hat Tips:

• WDWInfo / The DIS (August 5, 2026), Chloé Ferreira’s segment-by-segment earnings breakdown, the revenue, operating income, EPS, and per-division figures

• Deadline (August 5, 2026), the $25.2 billion revenue, the A+E sale confirmation, and D’Amaro’s quote

• CNBC (August 5, 2026), the buyback increase to $9 billion, the tariff refund, the NFL rights renegotiation, and the per-capita spending detail

• ts2.tech and Benzinga (August 5, 2026), the $812 million A+E impairment, the stock reaction, and the Sora and Epic Games context