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Quibi loses 92pc of early users after free trial expires

The new streaming platform launched in April - Quibi/Quibi
The new streaming platform launched in April - Quibi/Quibi

Bite-size video streaming site Quibi lost 92pc of its early users after the platform's free three-month trial expired, according to a new report.

The mobile-only subscription platform, which received the backing of Hollywood giants like Sony and Disney, aimed to capture audiences with short-form episodes of just 10 minutes in length.

It launched in April in the middle of the pandemic and reportedly attracted around 910,000 users to sign up for its free trial in the opening three days of its launch. By comparison, Disney+ gained 9.5 million subscribers on its first day.

Data from mobile analytics company Sensor Tower estimated that around 8pc of Quibi’s initial 910,000 users stayed on beyond the expiration of the three-month free trial earlier in the month. This compares to Disney, which Sensor Tower estimated kept 11pc of its initial subscribers once its free week-long period ended.

“Quibi is performing comparatively well based on its earliest adopters,” Sensor Tower said. “It simply didn't have the same volume of adopters early on or subsequently to obtain a greater number of paid users from that conversion percentage.”

Quibi is the brainchild of US film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who is known for his work in transforming the Walt Disney Company and for founding Shrek producer Dreamworks.

The service also garnered headlines for its technology that determines the orientation of a user’s phone and can seamlessly switch content based on the way the phone is held.

The Sensor Tower data suggested that Quibi has been downloaded 4.5 million times since April.

Sophie Turner in Survive
Sophie Turner in Survive

The Telegraph has requested a comment from Quibi.

In a statement to The Verge, Quibi stated that Sensor Tower’s estimate of paid subscribers was “incorrect by an order of magnitude”.

“To date, over 5.6 million people have downloaded the Quibi app,” the company said. “Our conversion from download to trial is above mobile app benchmarks and we are seeing excellent conversion to paid subscribers.”

Sensor Tower suggested that the discrepancy on the two download totals was due to the fact that its numbers do not reflect if the app is “installed again by the same user such as after deletion or to another device”.

Quibi has received $1.75bn (£1.4bn) from giants including Disney, Warner Bros and Sony, as well as the Chinese e-commerce titan Alibaba along with Hollywood heavyweights like Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro and Sam Raimi.