AfterDawn: Tech news

Retailers cautious over movie downloads

Written by James Delahunty @ 09 Apr 2007 6:14 User comments (1)

Retailers cautious over movie downloads Major retailers that account for millions of DVD sales every year are afraid of what movie downloading means for physical product sales. Music downloading has already taken a bite out of CD sales, stealing the business of "singles" from the CD format. The decline in CD sales and interest in buying CDs has had an effect at major retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy, who rely on cheap CDs and DVDs to keep customers returning to stores.
Now that movie download services are evolving, Wal-mart has already jumped into the ring, Best Buy hopes to by the end of the year and Blockbuster pondered purchasing MovieLink. DVD sales rose 5% last year, which was down from a 9% increase in the previous year and NPD research suggested that growth would slip faster if it wasn't for TV show sales on the DVD format.

"They're seeing fairly rapid declines in their CD business. That's likely to happen in their DVD business," said Andrew Hargreaves, who covers electronics retailers for Pacific Crest Securities. Wal-Mart's download service sold 3,000 movies in its first month - hardly an impressive figure, but it still puts the giant in the lead when compared to its rival retail chains.



Apple Inc. hopes that its major success in legal music downloads will lead to similar results for movies, although thus far, several vital elements of the music download success are missing from movie downloads, including the "one price to fit them all" concept that sounds less than appealing to movie studios. Also, movie downloads are much larger, taking way longer to download and watching full-length movies on an iPod isn't "that" appealing.

Services like Netflix might have more success with their customers, as they are already an Internet-based company and one can only assume the average Netflix user is more tech/Internet-savvy than the average street retailer's customers. Microsoft and Sony will also be major contenders as both are selling gaming consoles capable of playing high-definition video and connecting to the Internet, and Microsoft's Xbox Live Video Marketplace even offers some HD movie downloads.

These are just early times for (legal) movie downloading however, and it will take at least a couple of years before any retailers need to start worrying.

Source:
CTV

Previous Next  

1 user comment

19.4.2007 18:20

Not to worry. I think most people would rather burn it to dvd than watch it on a PC.

Comments have been disabled for this article.

Latest news

Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets (06 Jun 2023 9:19)
Roomba Combo j7+ is the very first Roomba model to combine robot vacuum with mopping features. And Roomba Combo j7+ does all that with a very clever trick, which tackles the problem with mopping and carpets. But is it any good? We found out.
Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations (02 May 2023 3:38)
Neato Robotics has ceased its operations. American robot vacuum pioneer founded in 2005 has finally called it quits and company will cease its operations and sales. Only a skeleton crew will remain who will keep the servers running until 2028.
5 user comments
How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp (20 Mar 2023 1:25)
The world's most popular messaging platform, Meta-owned WhatsApp has enabled sending messages to yourself. While at first, this might seem like an odd feature, it can be very useful in a lot of situations. ....
18 user comments
How to Enable Bluetooth on Stadia Controller How to Enable Bluetooth on Stadia Controller (11 Feb 2023 1:04)
Google shut down its streaming game service Stadia late last month and this means that some people have Stadia controllers lying around that seem to be of no use. That is fortunately not the ....
2 user comments
Guide: How to Kick Unwanted Guests from Your Netflix Account Guide: How to Kick Unwanted Guests from Your Netflix Account (26 Jan 2023 2:14)
Sharing a Netflix account with a person in a different location is possible and indeed very common, although the company doesn't necessarily enjoy this behavior from their customers. However, ....

News archive