Over 3 Million Copies of the ‘First’ Versions of Avid’s Creative Tools Have Now Been Downloaded by Video and Music Makers

Avid® (Nasdaq: AVID) today announced that aspiring creative people around the globe have now downloaded copies of Avid’s free Pro Tools® | First, Media Composer® | First and Sibelius® | First creative tools software more than 3 million times. Avid First tools were created to give new generations of artists essential experience and a career foothold by learning on simplified versions of the same tools that professionals use every day to create the most popular films, television and music enjoyed by people everywhere.

Since the introduction of Avid’s freemium offerings in 2015, First downloads have accelerated year over year, with 1 million added during the last year alone. With cloud-enabled First tools, users can create songs, music scores, videos, movies and other professional-grade content. First tools users seeking to further their creative capabilities and advance their careers can upgrade to more powerful versions of Avid creative tools on affordable paid subscription plans. Overall, the consistent conversion rates of free software downloads to paid software subscriptions for Avid’s First tools family are helping to drive the company’s robust subscription growth in the large and growing creative tools market.

“The Avid First tools continue to rise in popularity because they put a massive amount of creative capacity into the hands of aspiring artists and creative professionals, giving them entry-level versions of the industry’s leading creative tools for free—with an easy upgrade path to fully featured versions through affordable subscription plans,” said Jeff Rosica, Chief Executive Officer, Avid. “We’re thrilled that we’ve set a new record with 1 million additional downloads achieved in less than a year. Besides helping millions of aspiring content creators learn their craft, the continued success and accelerated popularity of Avid’s First freemium software strategy has also proven to be an important contributor to the growth of our subscription business.”

Pro Tools | First is for artists beginning their journey in recording and production. It gives aspiring artists a leap forward in turning their ideas into music. First users compose, record, mix and collaborate in the cloud with a streamlined creative tool set built on industry‐standard Pro Tools.

Media Composer | First is for artists just beginning their journey in video editing. It’s a complete, streamlined creative toolset built on Avid’s renowned editing brand with all the features and functionality needed to tell great stories.

Sibelius | First is a streamlined notation tool for musicians, composers and students. Based on the world’s best‐selling notation software, Sibelius | First enables music composition, transcription and editing with the added advantage of cloud‐based workflows.

All Avid First tools for aspiring creatives can be downloaded immediately for free at https://connect.avid.com/3-Million-Downloads.html

Avid First Users Connect with the Global Creative Community
Avid’s free tools also put the power of the global user community at users’ fingertips with free resources to advance their working knowledge, such as tutorials and online forums, which enable users to solicit help and share advice from each other and Avid’s staff experts. All Avid users are encouraged to take a free membership in the Avid Customer Association, which facilitates the creative community’s input and influence on what Avid does next and provides a forum for raising issues affecting media creation today.