Quickflix

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Australian streaming company

title: "Quickflix" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["defunct-video-on-demand-services", "subscription-video-on-demand-services", "defunct-subscription-services", "video-rental-services-in-australia", "australian-streaming-companies", "australian-companies-established-in-2003", "australian-companies-disestablished-in-2021", "internet-properties-established-in-2003", "companies-based-in-sydney", "playstation-4-software", "2005-initial-public-offerings", "2016-mergers-and-acquisitions", "australian-subsidiaries-of-foreign-companies"] description: "Australian streaming company" topic_path: "geography/australia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quickflix" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Australian streaming company ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox company"]

Field	Value
name	Quickflix Ltd.
logo	Quickflix-logo.png
area_served	Australia
New Zealand
key_people	Stephen Langsford (founder)
type	Subsidiary
industry	Home entertainment
products	Online DVD and Blu-ray Disc rental, internet streaming
parent	Karma Media Holdings
foundation
defunct
fate	Liquidation
location	Sydney, NSW, AUS
homepage	Quickflix.com.au
::

Quickflix was an Australian company that provided online DVD and Blu-ray Disc rental by mail as well as internet streaming of movies and television shows via online pay-per-view or subscription.

Initially established as an online disc rental company in 2003, Quickflix launched online movie downloads in 2006, and their streaming service in 2011. Although the first major streaming service to operate in Australia, Quickflix quickly lost ground to much larger competitor Netflix entering the market in 2015, among others. The company entered voluntary administration in early 2016, and was relaunched later that year under new owners. After several more years of trading, Quickflix was wound up in September 2021.

Services

Disc rental

The company provided a monthly flat-fee service for the rental of DVD and Blu-ray titles. Subscribers created an ordered list, referred to as their Quickflix Queue, of titles to rent. The discs are then delivered individually via Australia Post; the individual postage-paid envelopes would typically arrive within four days to most areas of Australia. Subscribers can keep the rented title for as long as desired, without any formal due dates and without accruing any late fees. However, there was a limit on the number of titles (a maximum of two, previously this was determined by subscription level) that each subscriber could have on loan simultaneously. To receive a new title, subscribers must mail a previously received disc back in the reply-paid envelope provided. Upon receipt of the disc, Quickflix would then ship the next available disc in the subscriber's queue (subscribers could also pre-notify the return of a disc online, thereby receiving the disc sooner).

Internet streaming

Quickflix streaming was available over a range of smart TVs, games consoles, Blu-ray players, desktops, laptops, mobiles, tablets and other devices. There were two tiers of content subscribers could access: a set library of movies (consisting of mostly older titles) that was included with a customer's subscription, and premium content (usually newer movies) that required an additional fee per title to watch. Consumers could also pay to watch individual premium titles without a streaming subscription. Prior to its relaunch in 2016, Quickflix also offered television series to stream, but after the relaunch their streaming library consisted exclusively of movies.

Throughout the years, Quickflix had made deals with Disney, NBC Universal, BBC Worldwide and Lionsgate to stream their content. HBO's 2012 investment in the company also gave Quickflix access to HBO's back catalogue of shows until 2015.

Customers could combine a streaming and disc rental subscription for a discount.

History

Quickflix was founded by Bill Keech, Sam McDonagh and Stephen Langsford, who were shortly afterwards joined by Simon Hodge. Langsford and Hodge would continue as long serving executives and directors following the company's launch in 2003 in Perth, Western Australia. The company would attract prominent business figures Bruce Gordon, Lachlan Murdoch and Domenic Carosa as investors.

Quickflix was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2005, but was delisted in 2017. In December 2005, Quickflix acquired rival company HomeScreen, a move that doubled the Quickflix customer base. In 2006, Quickflix launched movie downloads, competing against BigPond Movies. In April 2011, Quickflix announced the dispatch of their 10 millionth DVD, a copy of Shrek Forever After.

In July 2011, BigPond Movies revealed that they would no longer continue their DVD-by-mail service, selling their library of 50,000 titles to Quickflix. In that same month Quickflix announced that they would launch a subscription video streaming service initially on a selection of Sony's internet-connected devices, with the service eventually launching on 27 October 2011. Quickflix streaming became available on PCs and Macintosh computers, and on the PlayStation 3 later that same year. In January 2012, Quickflix announced a deal that would bring their service to Samsung TVs, mobiles and tablets, with Microsoft signing a deal to make Quickflix streaming available on Xbox 360 consoles later that year. The Quickflix app was installed as a stock app on a number of Windows Phone devices for a time.

In March 2012 Quickflix launched their streaming service in New Zealand. That same month, US premium TV network HBO, a division of global media giant Time Warner, invested $10 million in Quickflix for a strategic stake. However the following year saw the company face a temporary cash flow crisis that saw four of its six board members quit and its CEO depart.

By 2014 Quickflix was established as Australia's leading streaming service, and had boasted more than 182,000 subscribers as of June of that year. Nine paid $1 million for HBO's shares, just 10% of what HBO paid. By the following year a number of streaming competitors had launched in Australia: Netflix, Presto and Stan, the latter a joint venture between Quickflix major shareholder Nine and Fairfax Media. With their entry, Quickflix began to haemorrhage subscribers.

On 26 April 2016, Quickflix Australia announced that the company had entered voluntary administration, appointing Ferrier Hodgson to oversee the process. Quickflix blamed the company's largest shareholder, Nine Entertainment for their predicament, as they had refused to restructure the shares it had acquired from HBO, which would have enabled Quickflix to raise additional capital for investing in content and marketing to enable it to compete in an increasingly crowded market. It was reported that in the five years to 2015 the company had posted net losses of more than $40 million in total.

On 4 October 2016, U.S.-based Karma Media Holdings acquired Quickflix. Quickflix was relaunched in December 2016, offering a revamped streaming subscription which includes rental of up to four premium titles a month in addition to the set streaming library, and a renewed focus on new release movies. However in the subsequent years Quickflix's streaming library saw increasingly limited updates, and the company's focus largely returned to offering disc rental by mail to a niche consumer base.

In May 2021 a winding up application by EnergyAustralia was lodged against the company. Quickflix was wound up by court order in September 2021.

References

(2014). "Report".
(14 March 2014). "Quickflix welcomes competition". B and T.
(31 July 2015). "Quickflix haemorrhages customers in Q2 after Netflix launch". ZDNet.
(23 September 2021). "NOTICE OF WINDING UP ORDER AND APPOINTMENT AS LIQUIDATOR/PROVISIONAL LIQUIDATOR".
"Quickflix Review".
(17 February 2014). "Quickflix to stream Channel Seven's series Revenge, Agents of SHIELD and Downton Abbey". Mumbrella.
(4 June 2014). "Quickflix in deal with Lionsgate". Yahoo.
"Movie buff seeks same for download".
(May 2016). "Quickflix's cautionary tale: how to lose $40m in just five years".
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"Quickflix beefs up for download fight".
(28 April 2016). "How Channel Nine Killed Quickflix, Australia's Streaming Pioneer".
(December 2021). ["Quickflix reaches 10m milestone"](http://www.encoremagazine.com.au/quickflix-reaches-10m-milestone-7891 }}{{Dead link).
Boreham, Tim. (5 July 2011). "Quickflix buys Telstra BigPond assets". The Australian.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110711021544/http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/business/items/201107/s3262004.htm Quickflix aims to dominate DVD rentals]
(13 July 2011). "Quickflix comes to Sony gear and PCs". The Sydney Morning Herald.
(December 2021). ["Quickflix Signs with Samsung"](http://www.moviestrailers.com.au/quickflix-streaming-services-to-samsung-devices/ }}{{Dead link).
(30 April 2012). "The West Australian".
(29 March 2012). "Quickflix streams onto our screens today". NZHerald.
(21 July 2014). "Nine snaps up HBO's stake in Quickflix". The Australian.
Francis, Hannah. (26 April 2016). "Quickflix appoints Ferrier Hodgson as voluntary administrator".
(4 October 2016). "Quickflix snapped up for $1.3 million by US entrepreneur Erik Pence".
(30 November 2016). "Quickflix pivots focus to Hollywood blockbusters as it emerges from administration".
(5 December 2016). "Quickflix back from the dead with focus on new release movies".
"Quickflix: Everything you need to know about the streaming/rental service".
(25 July 2019). "Quickflix Review - Everything you need to know".
(4 May 2021). "Roundup: Stan Sport subscriptions, Media Code, TV ratings changes + more".

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