Walt Disney Co. gave a mixed picture as it reported third-quarter results on Wednesday, with weakness at its famed theme parks offsetting its first-ever profit in streaming. 

Disney’s U.S. theme parks, which were buffeted by rising costs and tepid demand, missed Wall Street estimates for sales and profit. The company said its Disneyland Paris park suffered from a reduction in summer travel due to the Olympics, and noted some “cyclical softening in China.”

Pressure on attendance will linger for “the next few quarters,” the company said Wednesday, after predicting a rebound in the final months of fiscal 2024. Disney now forecasts a mid-single-digit decline in profit in the current fiscal fourth quarter. 

The shares gyrated in premarket trading and were down 1.6% at 7:21 a.m. in New York.

The company is responding by “actively monitoring attendance and guest spending, and aggressively managing our cost base.”

In July, rival Comcast Corp. reported quarterly revenue that missed analysts’ estimates, dragged down in part by a slowdown at its Universal Studios theme parks.

Disney and Comcast parks rebounded strongly from the COVID-19 pandemic, but executives at both companies have signaled that demand is starting to normalize after an initial surge. 

The softer results from the experiences segment offset an otherwise surprisingly positive report. Earnings rose to $1.39 a share, excluding some items, beating the $1.19 average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The company raised its forecast for earnings growth this year to 30% from an earlier target of 25%. 

The Burbank, California-based company reported a $254 million profit at its film studio, ending a string of losses, thanks to the June release of “Inside Out 2” from the Pixar animation unit. Disney also reported a $47 million profit in streaming, the first since the flagship Disney+ streaming service debuted in 2019. That number includes Hulu and ESPN+.

The results mark an overall win for Disney’s entertainment division, which had been held back in recent years by misfires in the movie division and billions of dollars in streaming losses. Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger, who returned to lead Disney in 2022, had made fixing the company’s film business and achieving profitability in streaming two key priorities of his second tenure. 

Revenue for the quarter rose 3.7% to $23.2 billion, beating projections of $23.1 billion.

To keep streaming profitable, Disney is raising the prices of its online video services, announcing on Tuesday that a subscription to Disney+ will climb as much as 25%.

—Bloomberg News