DVD renters moving from high street to Web
- Added:
- Feb 09, 2005
A recent national omnibus survey conducted for "Video Island":http://www.netimperative.com/search?sort_on=Date&sort_order=descending&SearchableText=video+island by Taylor Nelson Sofres, revealed that nearly 10m UK adults rent DVDs monthly.
Close to a quarter (24%) rent four or more times a month, while 36% two to three times and 39% once a month.
Meanwhile, research carried out by ScreenSelect amongst its users discovered that 64% of subscribers no longer rent from the high street.
The UK market for online DVD rentals remains dominated by "Blockbuster":http://www.netimperative.com/search?sort_on=Date&sort_order=descending&SearchableText=blockbuster and Video Island, which runs its own consumer brand ScreenSelect and partners, including Tesco, MSN and ITV.
However, retail giant Amazon, which "released its own rental service in December":http://www.netimperative.com/2004/12/09/Amazon_DVD/view?searchterm=blockbuster, could also take a significant share of the market this year.
According to MRIB figures for 2004, Video Island already accounts for 3% of the total DVD rental market in the UK. The firm said it is now renting almost 450,000 DVDs per month, which is the equivalent of 80 high street stores.
In January 2005, Hitwise gave Video Island and its partner sites 31% market share of all visits in online DVD rental, making Video Island the largest independent business in the sector.
Helen Davis Jayalath, senior analyst at Screen Digest said: “It's clear that the online sector represents an increasingly important share of the rental business and that many consumers welcome the convenience of renting a wide range of titles from the comfort of their own homes."
