BOLT Business Performance | Q3 2019
In this Q3 report, we will summarise business, product, and token-related developments that have occurred so far in the third quarter of 2019.
The BOLT Business Performance (Q3 2019) Report rounds up strategic developments and results per quarter within the BOLT ecosystem. We also aim to provide a view on the focal areas that BOLT will be working on in the next quarter.
Following the completion of Quarter 3 of 2019, the BOLT Team is pleased to report the following headline financial data:
Operating Revenue : USD 3,500,000
Gross Profit Margin (%) : 46%
Operating Net Profit : USD 497,000
Net Profit Margin (%) : 14.2%
Operating revenue has increased in Q3 vs Q2 due to strong performance in diversifying our revenue sources, including white-labelling the BOLT+ platform for enterprise/government sector usage. Net margins have improved marginally due to some overheads cost rationalisation.
Key Q3 Milestones and Updates:
- BOLT+ — Content, Development and User Growth!
A key focus this quarter has been the continuous effort to grow our user base by: (i) hosting seasonal tent-pole events on BOLT+; and (ii) developing new features that add value to our users.
Hosting seasonal tent-pole events
The 2019 Rugby World Cup took place in Asia (Japan) for the very first time. We created curated playlists, live loops of rugby material and rugby passes to create awareness of the event and entice users to watch.
We succeeded in bringing the tournament to non-traditional rugby markets such as South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan), North Africa (Algeria) and Nigeria, which our founder Jamal Hassim spoke about during his recent CNN feature on ‘Quest Means Business’.
Through BOLT’s pre-existing user base, we hope to further Japan’s objective of bringing rugby to Asia and beyond — truly delivering on our goal to bring the best sports to everyone around the world.
It is the first time we have hosted a non-football / non-cricket event on BOLT+, so we were pleasantly surprised to see that rugby was a hit on our app! Over 230+ videos were uploaded on BOLT+ during the Rugby World Cup, which reached more than 2.5 million people in our ecosystem, strengthening our 3 million-strong following and adding over 4 million impressions in total.
Users spent an average of 2 minutes and 18 seconds on our app across our Rugby World Cup content, and our daily active users increased on days after the matches — which meant that our BOLT+ users were coming in to watch our official highlights.
It is also worthy to note that in this quarter, we deliberately scaled back on paid advertising spend to properly measure our organic amplification strategy across digital channels. The results have been promising, as we have increased our monthly active users from 1.58M users in Q2 to 1.74M users in Q3 – without a budget for paid advertising / paid media.
We will continue to take these learnings forward and apply them as we gear up for the Olympics next year.
Developing new features
We have expanded the array of features and content available on BOLT+. Our internal data tracking has shown that our live channels consistently outperform standalone video clips in viewing times by 3–5x. With this cue in mind, we added over 10 live TV channels and 40 live radio channels to BOLT+. We have also created a new playlist — E-sports.
We are also enhancing user engagement by introducing Stake, a new gamification feature that will debut soon on BOLT+. Stake allows BOLT+ users to potentially increase their $BOLTs by staking them on the outcomes of sports matches and testing their knowledge of what had happened during a particular match. If the BOLT user gives the correct answers, they would win their share of the pooled $BOLTs that have been staked.
Once implemented, Stake would be the first official use case for the $BOLT tokens, and allow $BOLT users to interact with the content that they are watching.
We have also been fixing app bugs and allowing for more profile customisation options. The team is also working on an infinite scrolling option, a search function and making our platform consume less data.
2. Content and marketing partnerships with Hisense
We announced a deeper partnership with Hisense this quarter, embarking on a strategic collaboration where Hisense will be our title sponsor and co-marketing partner globally. As part of the sponsorship, Hisense will pre-install the BOLT+ app in their latest E30 smartphone, which will launch soon in South Africa.
As co-marketing partners, BOLT and Hisense collaborated together on promotional events and collaterals this quarter. One foremost activation includes the Rugby World Cup, where we created playlists, videos and graphics in partnership with Hisense to support the Springboks, who triumphed and became the champions!
This tie-up with Hisense will continue on to 2020, with more opportunities to come!
3. Developing the BOLT ecosystem through Pegasus and BOLT website revamp
As part of our continuous development of our BOLT ecosystem, we launched Pegasus, BOLT’s official wallet, which is currently available on Android. Pegasus will soon be available on iOS devices.
One of the first features of Pegasus includes sending, receiving and storing your $BOLT and $BNB in one place. Ultimately, we hope to transform Pegasus into a marketplace, which would allow various ways of utilising $BOLTs, such as redeeming mobile data bundles!
We are also revamping the BOLT website to clearly express our identity and vision of BOLT, including an unveiling of our re-branding for 2020 and beyond. Stay tuned!
4. Our growing crypto/blockchain community
We are steadily growing our community in the blockchain space, with many of our community members creating great content, tweets, and engagement across our channels on Twitter and Telegram.
Here is a snapshot of what happened across our channels.
https://twitter.com/DaveCryptos/status/1190926289705852928
Stats
Growth of @Bolt_Global on Twitter:
- Tweet Impressions 417K, +24.9% growth
- Profile visits 5884, +19.9% growth
- Mentions 1306, +65.6% growth
- Followers 8912, +132 growth
Growth of @pegasusbolt on Twitter:
- 1439 followers since 29th August
BOLT Wallet Holders:
- On September 7 there were 57 addresses with over 1 million $BOLTs.
- On November 6, we counted over 100+ token holders with more than 1 million $BOLTs.
Boba for $BOLTs
One BOLT fan in the US has taken the love for BOLT to a new level, allowing boba tea in their shop to be paid in $BOLTs! If you are in San Francisco, be sure to drop by The Boba Shop!
- Releasing our all-new Smart TV app for BOLT+ ; making its first debut on Hisense TVs globally. Estimated roll out should commence in late Q1 2020.
- Releasing BOLT Gameshow, where users will be able to interact and win $BOLTs from BOLT+ — yet another use case utilising $BOLTs!
- Pushing out BOLT Stake aggressively, together with our Pegasus iOS application
- Beta Launch of our Partner Portal in Q1 2020, which will allow us to engage and onboard sponsors and content creators under one roof.
- Setting the course right for 2020 — we have a big year ahead with the Olympics, Euro 2020, Cricket World Cup and more!
Thanks for being with us on this journey everyone — to BOLT!
Thanks for reading! Join us on Telegram to participate in discussions on how we can make BOLT a movement we can be proud of. Drop us a note at enquiry [at] bolt.global for suggestions on what you would like to read next.
