It was finally confirmed this morning that Disney+, the streaming service from The Walt Disney Company, will be making its way to South Africa in the middle of this year.

Although it has been so secret that Disney+ would eventually be making a local appearance, exactly when local viewers would be able to watch it here (at least without a VPN) has remained shrouded in speculation until now. 

Disney+ has roster of heavyweights, with exclusive episodes and movies from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and general entertainment from Star. There is still no word as yet on what Disney+ will cost locally, although, given that Netflix has a firm footing in South Africa with 2.6 million subscribers as of late last year, along with other competitors such as Amazon Prime and Showmax, there is cause to believe that it will be competitive, or at least on par with the other streaming services.

Along with South Africa, the service will also launch in other countries that have hitherto been excluded, includingTurkey, Poland and the United Arab Emirates.

The full list of countries (in alphabetical order) that Disney+ will launch this winter:

1.    Albania

2.    Algeria

3.    Andorra

4.    Bahrain

5.    Bosnia and Herzegovina

6.    Bulgaria

7.    Croatia

8.    Czech Republic

9.    Egypt

10.  Estonia

11.  Greece

12.  Hungary

13.  Iraq

14.  Israel

15.  Jordan

16.  Kosovo

17.  Kuwait

18.  Latvia

19.  Lebanon

20.  Libya

21.  Liechtenstein

22.  Lithuania

23.  Malta

24.  Montenegro

25.  Morocco

26.  North Macedonia

27.  Oman

28.  Palestine

29.  Poland

30.  Qatar

31.  Romania

32.  San Marino

33.  Saudi Arabia

34.  Serbia

35.  Slovakia

36.  Slovenia

37.  South Africa

38.  Tunisia

39.  Turkey

40.  United Arab Emirates

41.  Vatican City

42.  Yemen