Quibi falls short
Most trial subscribers dropped it: study
Quibi, the short-form video app founded by Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, has retained just 8 percent of customers who signed up for a 90-day free trial, according to a new research study.
The mobile app — which has corralled A-list stars like Jennifer Lopez, LeBron James and Liam Hemsworth to crank out video shorts — has logged roughly 4.5 million installs to date since the April 6 launch, according to app measurement firm Sensor Tower.
But this week, among the 910,000 subscribers who signed up between April 6 and April 8, a maximum of 8 percent, or a mere 72,000 customers, have opted to pay for Quibi, Sensor Tower said.
By comparison, about 1 million users, or 11 percent of the 9.5 million downloads for Disney+ in its first three days of sign-ups, converted to paid subscriptions, Sensor Tower said.
A key difference is that Quibi opted for a lengthy three-month free trial, whereas Disney+ launched with a seven-day free trial. Disney+, which launched in
November, had more than 10 million signups after the first day of launch.
“The number of paid subscribers is incorrect by an order of magnitude,” a Quibi spokeswoman said Thursday, pushing back on Sensor Tower’s data. She said that “over 5.6 million people have downloaded the Quibi app,” as opposed to Sensor Tower’s 4.5 million estimate.
“Our conversion from download to trial is above mobile app benchmarks, and we are seeing excellent conversion to paid subscribers — both among our 90-day free trial signups from April, as well as our 14-day free trial signups from May and June,” the spokeswoman added.
Nonetheless, Quibi did not say how many paying customers it has netted to date.