Short-form video platform Quibi recorded over 1.7 million downloads in its first week after launch.
The stat was disclosed by CEO Meg Whitman and she added that the median age of Quibi viewers is so far somewhere in the low 30s.
Quibi is only available on Android and iPhone gives users a free trial period of 90 days, and the company previously said it would “refrain” from disclosing subscriber numbers and app download figures until after the trial window.
With 1.7 million, Quibi has beaten the expectation of analysts who were expecting numbers ranging between 1 and 1.5 million. However, in comparison with Disney Plus which surpassed 10 million users and 3.2 million app downloads on its launch day, Quibi’s number is still insignificant.
After the trial, Quibi charges $4.99 per month for an ad-supported plan or $7.99 for commercial-free viewing.
According to Whitman, 80 percent of customers who start watching a show at least finish the first episode. That’s not necessarily impressive when you consider that Quibi’s “quick bites” content always runs under 10 minutes in length. So it’s not at all clear whether any of Quibi’s originals have staying power, and making shows harder to share isn’t helping.
Whitman also noted yesterday that the platform is stocked up on original programming through November.
One of the big setbacks for Quibi is that it does not have TV support. It took a bit of risk for both Jeffrey Katzenberg and Whitman to launch the service without any kind of TV app or large-screen experience, but the company seems to be fast-tracking that part now after initial reviews cited it as a major downside to the paid video service.
Whitfield said, “We had always planned to be able to cast to your TV, so we’re going to see if we can accelerate that in the engineering roadmap.
“We’ll eventually get there, but it was never a part of the launch. If we had known about COVID, maybe it would have been.”
