Quickflix 'opens up the throttle' on marketing

By Frank Chung | 15 April 2014
 
Quickflix CEO Stephen Langsford.

Streaming and rental service Quickflix has posted a 9% increase in revenue and a 16% increase in subscribers for the March quarter, with CEO Stephen Langsford welcoming the arrival of Foxtel's competitor offering and flagging a marketing splurge in coming months.

Quickflix's paying customers increased by 16%, or 16,000, to 118,557, while total active customers – paying customers plus trialists – increased by 13% to 137,059.

Revenue was up 9% on the previous quarter to $5.2 million off the back of growing monthly subscriptions and demand for streaming pay-per-view purchases.

Net operating and investing cash outflow was $1.3 million for the quarter, an improvement on the $1.8 million outflow reported in the December quarter.

Langsford told AdNews the launch of Foxtel's Play streaming service served to "legitimise" Quickflix's position by acknowledging consumer demand for streaming, and would increase awareness for the category and grow the overall market.

"Our job continues, to be fleet of foot and an innovator, and our offer is certainly more affordable than the competition," he said. "There is some advantage [to being smaller] and we don't have an incumbent business to protect."

More than half of Quickflix's streaming comes through smart TVs and game consoles, with the launch of Quickflix on Xbox One this month expected to provide an additional boost.

But with already strong penetration through connected TVs, Langsford said there would be increasing focus on driving organic take-up and awareness via marketing. "We've certainly stepped it up. We've really opened the throttle on increasing our marketing activity and we expect that to continue [in the coming year]."

On the revenue breakdown between Quickflix's traditional DVD and Blu-ray rental business and streaming, Langsford said bundled packages meant the split was "fairly arbitrary" but given the rental business was still a $1.5 billion market in Australia, the business would "continue to grow in a contracting market".

"We may well still be sending out DVDs to audience even upwards of 10 years' time. There's still an ageing population who like to put the DVD in the machine – and to be honest I do too."

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