As Storytel notches up yet another bag of exceeded targets, revenue increases and year on year growth it becomes harder and harder not to think of Storytel as predictable.
But of course it is the very unpredictability of Storytel as it ventures into new markets deeper-pocked players choose to ignore, that makes its success so predictable.
First, let’s have the numbers, direct from the Storytel press release:
Storytel had 1,083,400 paying subscribers on average in Q4 2019. This corresponds to an increase of 69,000 subscribers compared to Q3 2019 and an annual subscriber growth of 41%. Storytel therefore surpasses the forecast of 1,079,000 subscribers for the period.
Streaming revenue for Q4 landed at 421 million SEK, compared to the forecast of 417 million SEK, which corresponds to a revenue increase of 45% compared to Q4 2018. On Christmas Day, Storytel also passed another milestone and ended 2019 with a subscriber base of more than 1,100,000 paying customers, which was the target for the year.
Storytel CEO Jonas Tellander adds,
Storytel’s strong customer intake continues in both our Nordic and our global operations, which together are showing annual growth of more than 40% in Q4. This naturally contributes to our positive revenue development with a retained high-level ARPU.
Looking at the breakdown (Nordics v. Rest of Storytel World):
In the Nordic region, the total number of paying customers in Q4 2019 was 757,600, which exceeds the forecast of 756,000 subscribers and is an increase of 141,300 subscribers compared to the same quarter in 2018.
In the Non-Nordic segment the total number of paying customers was 325,800, exceeding the forecast of 323,000 subscribers and corresponding to an annual growth of 173,400 subscribers compared to Q4 2018, which is an increase of 114%.
Streaming revenue in the Nordic region was 352 million SEK in Q4 2019, compared to a forecast of 349 million SEK and 340 million SEK in Q3 2019. In the Non-Nordic segment streaming revenue was 69 million SEK compared to a forecast of 68 million SEK and a revenue of 59 million SEK in Q3 2019. The increase in revenue is primarily due to strong subscriber growth in conjunction with the winter holidays, and a retained high-level ARPU.
In 2019 Storytel reached 19 markets across 20 territories and was the TNPS Story of the Year.
