LOS ANGELES — Disney has taken an especially hard hit from the pandemic, with its theme parks shuttered, movies postponed and ESPN cable channel without live sports to televise.

But the company on Wednesday offered an upbeat update on its newest business — one that may as well have been built for home quarantining: Disney Plus, its Netflix-style streaming service, has 50 million paid subscribers worldwide, an astounding number for a product that is only five months old.

Before its November introduction, analysts expected Disney Plus to take until 2022 to reach 50 million subscribers.

To compare, Hulu, now owned by Disney, has only about 30 million subscribers after 13 years in operation; Hulu has not yet been introduced overseas. The leading streaming service, Netflix, introduced in 2007, has about 167 million subscribers worldwide.