Disney announces price hike on its Disney Plus streaming service as it reaches nearly 87 million subscribers

• Disney in March plans to increase the price of its subscription to Disney Plus by $1, to $7.99 a month.
• The streaming service has 86.8 million subscribers, Disney announced Thursday.
• The company now expects having 230 million to 260 million subscribers to Disney Plus by 2024.

Disney in March will increase the price of its subscription to Disney Plus by $1 a month, to $7.99, the company said in a press release Thursday.

The increased rate is scheduled to take effect March 26 and will also affect the bundling of Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus, which together will cost $13.99 a month.

The spokesman Paul Melvin told Business Insider the company was also "offering a bundle option of $18.99/month for Disney Plus, ESPN Plus, and Hulu without Ads."

Disney announced Thursday that Disney Plus had 86.8 million subscribers. That was a dramatic increase even from numbers reported last month, when the streaming service reported having 73 million subscribers as of early October. The company now says that by 2024 it expects having 230 million to 260 million Disney Plus subscribers.

By comparison, the streaming platform Netflix had 195 million subscribers worldwide and 73 million subscribers in the US and Canada as of last month.

Disney also announced several new updates Thursday, including the goal of releasing more than 100 new titles a year.