No one is using Quibi

Back in April Quibi made its official debut: it's the first streaming platform designed exclusively for smart-phone. In the two weeks following the launch, the app reported that it had 2,7 million downloads worldwide; then, despite the involvement of many big names (Jennifer Lopez, Chrissy Teigen and Steven Spielberg, Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz, Chance The Rapper), it fell out of the top 50 most downloaded free iPhones apps a week after it launched. Now, it ranks as No. 125, with 3.5 million users of which 1.3 million are active on the app (Disney+ reached more than 50 million users in 6 months). 

To be honest, the landscape of the streaming market was already full. In this situation, Quibi had an original goal: with its contents designed to be watched in both senses (horizontally and vertically) without deforming the images, they never last more than 10 minutes and are made to be "consumed" in the spare time. The app's name itself comes from “Quick Bites”. 

The idea from Jeffrey Katzenberg (chairman of The Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 2004, then co-founder and CEO of DreamWorks Animation) and Meg Whitman (described by the New York Times as one of the most powerful managers in the USA) was not entirely wrong: the "bites" were supposed to be "eaten" in all the small spare moments of the day that have been thrown away by the lockdown, whether they'd be in the subway or while waiting for a friend.

When it was launched, the co-founders did not expect to break into the market during a global pandemic. That's why Katzenberg is blaming the health emergency for the small numbers: “I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus. Everything", he said on a recent interview. Furthermore, the launch coincided with the release of Disney+, another new streaming platform on which nss magazine already expressed some doubts - but that surely has a stronger back-up plan than a start-up.

For now, Katzenberg is not thinking of a failure: "I don’t know what people are expecting from us. What did Netflix look like 30 days after it launched? To tell me about a company that has a billion users and is doing great in the past six weeks, I’m happy for them, but what the hell does it have to do with me?" 

Ahead of its launch, the company predicted it would have 7 million downloads by the end of its first year and it would generate $250 million in revenue. There are still a few months left before any catastrophic statement.