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. 

Bob Scott

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Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards.  Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He  has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that.  A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind