 Australia’s answer to Netflix – Quickflix (QFX) reported a surge in users numbers in the December quarter, adding 10,000 new customers.
It now has 120,800 ‘active’ customers – up 10% although this includes over 18,500 trialists, who don’t pay.
Excluding trialists, the number of paying customers was 102,248 – up just 4 per cent.
However, churn rate improved to 5.1 per cent, up 7 per cent on last quarter.
But despite this, Quickflix revenue fell 5 per cent to $4.8 million, although is predicting growth next quarter.
“We anticipate an uptick in revenue, and a strong quarter for paying customers numbers for the March quarter,” QFX CEO Stephen Langsford told CN.
“We’re very pleased with the return to growth”, he said. Last year QFX suffered a woeful funding crisis, with shares trading at $0.01.
QFX revenue is tracking higher with a larger number of paying customers in the first weeks of the current quarter.
The growth spurt comes as Quickflix app is rolled out to every device (and its mother) – from Samsung and LG Smart TVs, Xbox, Kindle and PlayStation. Last quarter also saw QFX launch a pay-per view movie and TV service.
The largest proportion of Quickflix subscribers are evenly split between Smart TVs, consoles and tablets, Langsford says.
The Aussie content provider said it was experiencing strong demand for streaming services, its growth “engine” as the number of hours spent streaming TV shows, movies rose 20 per cent.
QFX offers an ‘all you can eat’ unlimited DVDs and TV, movie streaming for a cool $15 per month. It allows multiple users to stream at the same time.
But streaming is still a “new phenomena” and majority of device owners still have to discover it, Quickflix boss notes.
Over 50% of what we stream is TV shows, which caters for ‘binge viewing’, he says. Popular shows include HBO titles Game of Thrones, Newsroom and of course Breaking Bad.
Its DVD business is still growing, despite evidence to the contrary although demand is set to contract as DVD stores shut.
QFX is hoping to pick up DVD customers who would otherwise have gone to the local video store to rent movies.
“It’s still a $1.5bn industry” Langsford says.
However, despite the uptick, the listed company’s share price remains at abysmal lows – trading at just $0.013 on the ASX.
Net operating and investing cash outflow for the quarter was $0.93 million.
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