Foxtel’s investment into streaming services is paying off, with BINGE, Kayo and Foxtel Now reaching a record 2 million subscribers.
The subscriber figures were released this morning as News Corp shared its full-year financial results for FY 2021.
As of June 30 2021, Foxtel had a total of 3.891 million paid subscribers, marking a 40 per cent increase compared to the prior year.
This growth was led by the success of both BINGE and Kayo, with BINGE reaching 733,000 paying subscribers and Kayo hitting 1.054 million paid subscribers.
“We also saw record subscriber growth at Foxtel, where, at the end of June, our paid streaming subscribers reached over 2 million, an increase year-on-year of 155 per cent,” said News Corp CEO Robert Thomson.
“That sterling performance has clearly given us much optionality as we consider Foxtel’s future, which is certainly bright, given that revenues rose 33 percent in the Fourth Quarter.”
The growth of streaming services is all the more impressive, considering BINGE only launched in May of 2020 and Kayo lost around 136,000 paying subscribers in April of 2020, as many professional sports leagues were called off.
Profits grow across the business
The acceleration of Foxtel’s streaming products was just part of what was a successful quarter for News Corp.
Revenue was up to $US9.36 billion ($12.64 billion), marking a four per cent increase on the year prior.
News Corp’s book publishing business saw a revenue increase of 19 per cent, while the News Media business fell 21 per cent, ;argely due to the divestment of News America Marketing and Unruly.
Revenues at News Corp Australia fell one per cent.
“Fiscal Year 2021 was the most profitable year since we created the new News Corp in 2013, with revenues rising four percent in the full year and surging by 30 percent in the Fourth Quarter,” said Thomson.
“Profitability improved by 26 percent for the year, when we had a record number of digital subscriptions, record revenue and profits at Move and record traffic at realtor.com®, record profits at HarperCollins and the largest profit at Dow Jones since its acquisition in 2007.”
