HBO Max, which has zigged and zagged more than most streaming services since its delayed launch in 2020, has regained some traction and will hit 150 million subscribers by the end of 2026.
Warner Bros. Discovery executives delivered that outlook for their flagship streamer in announcing the company’s first-quarter earnings. The company said global launches in key territories like the UK enabled HBO Max to top internal forecasts, ending the January-to-March period with more than 140 million subscribers.
Over the past year or two, subscriber tallies have been held closer to the vest by Netflix and major media companies, as profit and other metrics take priority in a maturing streaming business. But after all of the struggles with HBO Max, which launched later than rivals and into the teeth of Covid and got whipsawed by corporate ownership changes, rebranding efforts and strategic overhauls, WBD wanted to make a claim to progress.
Lighting up in the UK, Germany, Italy and Ireland – markets long inaccessible due to legacy distribution deals with Sky – enabled HBO Max to “meaningfully exceeded our guidance” in Q1, Zaslav said. The streamer has “strong and accelerating momentum,” he added.
“We are seeing healthy acceleration and subscriber-related revenue growth. which we expect will pick up real pace in Q2 and through the rest of the year,” Zaslav added.
The service will benefit from “even more strength from Paramount,” Zaslav added on an earnings call with Wall Street analysts, alluding to the pending $110 billion acquisition by David Ellison’s company. Paramount has said it expects to close the transaction by September. While Paramount+ and HBO Max will combine in some fashion, Ellison and his team have not detailed plans for pricing or integrating the services.
If it gets to the 150 million mark, HBO Max will still be significantly behind Netflix, which said earlier this year it ended 2025 with more than 325 million subscribers. Disney has followed Netflix’s lead and no longer reports subscriber levels each quarter. Recent statistics put Disney in the same realm as WBD, with those two companies substantially ahead of NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Paramount+, joining Amazon Prime Video in streaming’s top handful.
Streaming and gaming chief JB Perrette said a surge of content headlined by a planned 10-year run of Harry Potter seasons starting in 2027 will be “a huge tailwind” for HBO Max. He also reflected on the four-year run of the Zaslav-led management team came aboard after the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery. Engagement and churn metrics in recent months have been the best at any time in that span, and more than 50 million subscribers have been added, with losses of $2 billion swinging to a profit of more than $1 billion.
Perrette said the new territory launches mean HBO Max is “still in the very early days of that growth trajectory.” The service is in a “very different situation” from rivals who have “been at this for 15 to 20 years,” the exec added. “We’re in the early innings” by comparison, he said.