Ok .. that’s in the States and not here, but wow! That ain’t a vote of confidence for the good ‘ol large store format. The DVD rental industry has evolved into 3 models .. mail-order, local large format and vending machine. Vending machines in the states are going great guns. Redbox has 8000 (and is prepping for an IPO), DVDPlay has 1400 and The New Release has 2000.

Australia is of course a different story. Our in-store rental market is about $500 million/year, whereas the States is about $7.5 billion. That goes someway to explaining why Quickflix and Bigpondmovies are struggling by comparison to Netflix (which has gone gangbusters), and why Blockbuster can even contemplate rolling out 10,000 kiosks while Instant DVD here (and with some great media coverage from Today Tonight) has managed only 23.

But .. the trend is there, and we’re keeping an eye on it!

Posted August 16th, 2008 under Business and Strategy.
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