January 17, 2008

iTunes Movie Rentals May Worry Netflix, But Not DVDPlay

DVD rental kiosk operator DVDPlay doesn't seem to be worried about iTunes, video-on-demand, or any other digital content provider on the market. The company achieved ten-fold growth in 2007 and just celebrated their 13 millionth DVD rental through the use of 1400 kiosks in the United States. They plan to install another 1800 kiosks by the end of this year.

"The DVD is very much alive and will continue to be a dominant home entertainment medium for the foreseeable future," said Chuck Berger, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of DVDPlay. "Video on demand is still an emerging market given the significant technology obstacles and other barriers that have yet to be overcome."

While much of the focus in the past year has been on digital content, US consumers purchased 33 million DVD players in 2007 bringing the total number of players in US homes to 230 million. Berger also pointed out that DVD resolution is 3 times the quality of any downloadable content and the success of DVDPlay indicates that consumers still prefer DVD's to another other video format.

Via Business Wire