Streaming platform FuboTV reported 1.477 million paid subscribers in North America for the third quarter, an all-time high for the company and above the midpoint of its subscriber guidance of 1.337 million.
North American revenue reached $313 million, 43 percent above the prior year, and above the midpoint of the company’s guidance of $275 million.
Ad revenue in North America reached $30.3 million, up 34 percent year-over-year, and average revenue per user in the region grew 17 percent year-over-year to reach a high of $83.51.
This comes as the company and the back half of the year features a “sports heavy” lineup, including college football and NFL seasons as well as the second half of the MLB season, which executives argue the company is well-positioned to deliver.
“Importantly, we believe our results reflect the growing appeal of our aggregated and curated sports-centric offering, the discoverability and navigability of our platform and our compelling value proposition. We also believe Fubo can differentiate and lead the virtual MVPD category through our intuitive and personalized streaming experience as demonstrated by the ongoing launches of our new apps globally,” the company’s shareholder letter reads.
Additionally, David Gandler, Fubo’s CEO and cofounder, says he sees an opportunity in light of the Disney-Charter dispute, which ultimately saw some of Disney’s streaming services offered as part of the pay TV bundle. Gandler said he believes this marks an inflection point in the shift from the “unbundling of content back to aggregation,” and argues that Fubo is well-positioned within that as a “super aggregator.”
“Going a step further, we believe the industry will shift towards super aggregation, meaning distribution platforms will start to package content in different ways and deliver it to consumers at multiple price points,” Gandler said.
During the dispute, Charter urged customers to sign up for Fubo. Gandler said this helped with brand awareness but did not necessarily drive subscribers to the platform because of the short length of the dispute and the fact that it was resolved before the start of Monday Night Football.
In the rest of the world, Fubo reported $8.4 million in total revenue, up 45 percent year-over-year and 411,000 paid subscribers, up 15 percent year-over-year. The company improved its net loss to $84.4 million from $105.8 million a year ago.
Asked about the impact of the Israel war, CFO John Janedis said the company had not seen many related cancellations, but that they have been hearing of customers “holding money a little tighter.”
“I think what we’re hearing, though, in the marketplace is just there’s a bit less visibility as I think clients are just holding money a little bit tighter to the vest to see how things play out,” Janedis said.
In light of the results and the expected trajectory, the company raised its full-year 2023 revenue and subscriber guidance in North America to $1.319 billion to $1.324 billion in revenue (up from previous guidance of $1.260 billion to $1.280 billion), and subscriber guidance of 1.584 million to 1.599 million paid subscribers (up from prior guidance of 1.565 million to 1.585 million).
The company believes it will be able to achieve its positive cash flow goal in 2025.
