Subscriber growth for Intuit’s QuickBooks Online continues to outstrip increases for smaller rival Xero. The software company reported a 40.6-percent rise in QBO subscribers when it issued its financial results this week for the first quarter ended October 30. That compares to a 32-percent-year-over-year increase for Xero’s first half ended September 30.Intuit said it had 3.6 million subscribers at the end of the quarter, up from 2.6 million a year earlier. Xero reported almost 1.6 million subscribers at the end of its half, rising from slightly less than 1.2 million at the end of the first half of 2018.
In this week’s earnings webcast, CEO Brad Smith pointed to the recently introduced QuickBooks Online Advanced as part of a broadening of the online accounting line. Advanced is designed for companies with 10 to 100 employees. Smith said about 180,000 QBO customers fit the target company profile.
Desktop QB unit sales dropped year-over-year to 114,000, down from 120,000. The number of desktop subscribers rose 8.4 percent to 389,000 from 359,000.
Overall, Intuit had net income of $34 million for the most recently ended quarter, compared to a loss of $2 million a year ago. Revenue was slightly more than $1 billion, an increase of 8.6 percent from $945 million in last year’s corresponding period.
