Fubo Falls to 1.45 Million Paid Users in North America, Posts 26% Year-Over-Year Revenue Increase
The sports-focused streamer saw positive year-over-year results during a quarter that is typically slow for all linear TV distributors.
Fubo’s quarterly earnings reports garner quite a bit of attention these days, thanks mostly in part to its ongoing quest to kill Venu Sports in the crib. Fubo unveiled its second quarter 2024 earnings on Tuesday, and as part of the report, it stated that it now has 1.45 million subscribers in North America, a decrease of 61,000 customers over the past three months. At the end of the first quarter, Fubo claimed 1.908 million global customers. Outside of North America, Fubo reported 399,000 subscribers in Q2, bringing its total subscriber base to 1.849 million.
Despite the seasonal quarterly decline in customers, the sports-focused streaming service did post a 24% increase in subscriber count over the corresponding period in 2023. At the end of the second quarter of 2023, Fubo claimed 1.167 million subscribers. The relatively strong Q2 performance exceeds the company’s previous guidance on what shareholders could expect from April through June.
On the financial side, Fubo’s average revenue per user (ARPU) was $85.69 at the end of the second quarter. That represents a 5% increase over Q2 last year when ARPU was $81.62. In Q2, total revenue for Fubo amounted to $382.7 million, and although the company is still losing money, it continues to narrow its losses. This total represents a 26% year-over-year increase. Fubo lost $25.8 million during the quarter, improving on the last-year loss of $54 million in the same three-month period.
The second quarter of the year is typically a down one for all live TV distributors with a complete absence of football and the ends of the NBA and NHL seasons. Given Fubo’s sports-focused customer base, it is not a surprise to see their numbers fluctuate even more than other live TV streaming services during this period. Therefore, the continued year-over-year success bodes well for the company maintaining a reliable, if not still relatively small, customer base.
“Fubo delivered excellent results in the second quarter of 2024, despite the Warner Bros. Discovery content drop, achieving our sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvement in our global profitability metrics,” Fubo co-founder and CEO David Gandler said. “In North America, we exceeded guidance, growing North America revenue by 26% and subscribers by 24% year-over-year. We’re confident we can continue this success as we remain focused on delighting our users with more flexible bundle options as part of our Super Aggregation strategy, delivered to them through a single, frictionless app. We also continue to advocate for a fairer playing field in the media industry, benefiting Fubo, our competitors and, most importantly, the American consumer.”
The drive to reach profitability comes at an inflection point for Fubo. It continues to perceive the Venu Sports joint venture platform from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery as an existential threat, and its lawsuit to stop Venu from ever reaching customers is proceeding. Attorneys for the three companies called Fubo a “weak competitor” in court filings brought to light at the end of July.
In the press release announcing their quarterly results, Fubo directly addressed the risks related to the potential launch of Venu Sports. The company decided to issue guidance as if the joint-venture sports streaming platform will not launch during Q3, as it is currently schedule to.
“Given the many unknowns related to the potential launch of Venu Sports … our guidance and other statements in this letter with respect to Fubo’s financial condition and our anticipated financial performance in future periods do not reflect any potential impact of the launch to our business,” Fubo said. “Risks related to Venu and the related litigation are described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Fubo’s lawyers are set to ask a federal judge on Tuesday to issue an injunction preventing Venu’s launch and relieving Fubo of any contractual obligations from being able to launch their own similar service, which is what the company’s goal has been for many years. Currently, Fubo — like every other channel distributor — is essentially forced to carry packages of channels from content owners in order to get access to the top networks. This ensures that less popular networks are bringing in carriage fees for the channel owners, but it also means that distributors must pass on the price to customers who aren’t necessarily interested in watching channels they are paying for.
It can be argued that this is especially burdensome for Fubo, as its target market is sports fans. By having to pay to carry non-sports, entertainment-focused channels, it is driving up the cost of its subscription without adding much in terms of value to the service.
Despite the concern surrounding Venu, Fubo made a new carriage agreement with a key partner during the quarter, agreeing to a long-term deal with Diamond Sports Group which will allow Fubo to continue distributing Bally Sports regional sports networks (RSNs) for multiple years to come. News of that deal first broke in May.
A few weeks later, Fubo lost another of its RSN partners. The streamer no longer offers the Monumental Sports Network, which means fans in and around Washington, D.C. can no longer watch the channel on Fubo. Monumental carries regular season games from the NBA’s Washington Wizards, the NHL’s Washington Capitals and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics.
Fubo
Fubo is a live TV streaming service with about 90 top channels that start at $79.99 per month. This plan includes local channels, 19 of the top 35 cable channels, and regional sports networks (RSNs). In total, you should expect to pay about $94.99 per month, after adding in their RSN Fee. Fubo was previously known as “fuboTV.”