Report: Movie disc rentals maintain dominance over streaming
updated 04:09 pm EDT, Wed August 8, 2012
NPD report see kiosks issue almost half of disc rentals
People still rent more movies on DVD and Blu-ray than streaming and video-on-demand services combined, according to an NPD Group report. In the first half of the year, 62 percent of all movie rentals in the US stemmed from discs supplied by brick-and-mortar shops, kiosks and mail-order services. Kiosk use has increased by five percent, now taking up 45 percent of the physical-media rental market.
Despite physical rentals dropping by 17 percent compared to last year, on-demand rentals take up only 38 percent of the market. Digital movie rentals rose five percent, an increase that NPD attributes to a rise in Netflix's Watch Instantly popularity, which takes up two third of the digital rental market. Pay TV video-on-demand services beat Internet video-on-demand for the remainder, taking 28 percent of the market.
NPD analyst Russ Crupnick suggests Netflix was the most popular video application on connected devices, and that both kiosk-based rentals and subscription Internet streaming are "generating strong user satisfaction ratings." [via CNet]
