News

DVD kiosks officially beat in-store rentals

January 18, 2011

Most people have assumed that consumers prefer to rent movies via DVD-rental kiosks as opposed to brick-and-morter stores, but it's now official.

According to USA Today, the kiosks surpassed retail-store rentals in the United States last year, according to a new study from the NPD Group.

Subscription rental services like Netflix still represent the lion's share of video rentals — 41 percent in the third quarter of 2010 — but NPD notes that kiosk rentals are now in second place at 31 percent, just ahead of in-store rentals at 27 percent.

Kiosk rentals gained 10 percentage points year-over-year — and this was despite the 28-day rental windows imposed by some major studios. Meanwhile, the percentage of traditional video store rentals declined by 13 percentage points, with subscription-rental market share staying relatively flat, increasing by two points.