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Why is Blu-ray important to the kiosk business?
When am I going to be able to press a button on my temple and get a movie to start playing in my head? Don’t laugh, it’s probably under development!
But hold on a minute. Weren’t digital downloads overtaking DVD sales, like ... five years ago? Nope, that hasn’t happened either. Now with the addition of the Blu-ray, it doesn’t look like it will happen any time soon.
Blu-ray players make physical media relevant again …
According to Engadget.com, Blu-ray player sales were up 44 percent in 2010 while overall consumer spending was down one percent, and all packaged media purchases fell 7.1 percent from one year ago to $4.7 billion. Yes that was all packaged media sold is billions with a “B”. The value of Blu-ray sales nearly doubled with a whopping 84 percent gain to just over $730 million dollars. I would say that’s pretty impressive because it took place in the midst of one of the worst economic times in recent history. With all the hype around streaming and downloads, people seem to forget that physical is still number one in sales by almost five to one.
Now that the 3D TV’s have hit the market, the average Joe will be hooking it up to the new Blu-ray player he bought during the last holiday period, and he’s good to go for the foreseeable future. Most people aren’t that technical. Most of us want to push a button and be done. That’s why physical media is still beloved. Rent it, pop it into a player and just push play.
Even with major movie rental chains closing or filing for bankruptcy, people still want to rent a movie on a Friday or Saturday night. In fact, in these economic times, they’d rather rent, because actually going to the movies would be like paying $20 bucks a gallon for gas when you can get it for $3.
We might be witnessing a turning point in the way consumers rent movies. The DVD kiosk industry is at the tipping point from the novelty it started out to be, to one of the only ways to rent movies. Indeed, this new generation of DVD kiosks that are being deployed might still be around when and if physical media final dies. Seeing all the money being spent on new Blu-ray players, the death of that physical media won’t be for some time to come.
That’s a good sign for anyone in the DVD kiosk business, or shall I say the Blu-ray kiosk business?
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