• by Wayne Friedman , August 10, 2021

FuboTV, the sports-focused virtual pay TV provider, witnessed a 196% rise in second-quarter revenue to $130.9 million versus the same period a year ago.

While revenues grew sharply, fuboTV also widened its quarterly net loss -- from $73.6 million in the second quarter 2020 to $94.9 million YoY.

The company says it is making progress toward “profitability.”

“Strategic investments in programming, team, technology and infrastructure have resulted in expected expense increases on an absolute dollar basis year-over-year. However, expenses continue to be significantly reduced in proportion to revenue,” says David Gandler, co-founder-CEO, in a shareholders letter.

It expects revenue to climb between $140 million to $144 million in the third quarter and full-year 2021 revenues to be between $560 million and $570 million.

He also says there has been growth in advertising dollars, helping the company to move in a profitable direction. Its monthly average ad revenue per user (ARPU) is up 62% to $8.70.

Advertising revenue continues to be fast-growing, but still a small part of the overall revenue picture (13%). Ad sales grew nearly threefold to $16.5 million in the quarter, versus $4.3 million in the second quarter of 2020.

Subscription revenue also rose sharply by 190% to $114.4 million in the second quarter.

Subscribers improved 140% to 681,721 year-over-year. Sequential quarterly subscriber improvement from the first quarter was 15%, adding 91,291, due to the sports-heavy content of second-quarter 2021.

Overall ARPU -- which factors in advertising and subscription revenue -- witnessed a 30% hike to $71.43. By the end of 2021, the company expects to have between 910,000 and 920,000 subscribers.