Apple Continues to Dominate U.S. Online Video Purchase and Rental Markets

MacRumors · Apr 23, 2013

NPD today released a new report highlighting the U.S. online digital video market for 2012, finding that Apple continues to dominate both purchases and rentals.

In looking at purchased content, Apple holds a commanding 67% of the TV show market and 65% of the movie market, with its closest competitors Xbox Video and Amazon each holding roughly 10% of the market.

While the competition is tighter in the rental market, Apple still holds a solid lead with 45% of the market for digital movie rentals, with Amazon taking second place at 18%.

"Apple has successfully leveraged its first-mover advantage and of iTunes, iOS and the popularity of iPhone and iPad to dominate the digital sale and rental markets for movies and music," said Russ Crupnick, senior vice president of industry analysis at NPD. "While worthy competitors have come along, no other retailer has so thoroughly dominated its core entertainment product categories for so long."

Notably, NPD's study does not include subscription services such as Netflix and on-demand content from cable providers. Previous studies including those types of content have found Apple's market share shrinking to roughly 5% in the face of Netflix's overwhelming strength.

Article Link: Apple Continues to Dominate U.S. Online Video Purchase and Rental Markets

nepalisherpa · Apr 23, 2013

What I would like to see is Apple dominating even more in the iOS department. Bring out the newer/better iOS!

M-O · Apr 23, 2013

If they aren't 100%, they might as well be 0%.
-Wall Street

DJJAZZYJET · Apr 23, 2013

iTunes + Mac = Seamless, beautiful and lightning fast.
iTunes + Windows = Ugly, complex and painfully slow.

nazaar · Apr 23, 2013

it's ease of use for sure

newdeal · Apr 23, 2013

itunes needs to be split into two, one for media organization alone and the second the store which combines mac, iOS, music, books etc all into one store. Purchases jump from one to the other but taking out the store from iTunes gets rid of the clunkiness.

EbookReader · Apr 23, 2013

Previous studies including those types of content have found Apple's market share shrinking to roughly 5% in the face of Netflix's overwhelming strength.

-------------------

damn...Netflix must be huge. $4 billion a year?

stanton · Apr 23, 2013

EbookReader said:
damn...Netflix must be huge. $4 billion a year?

29.17 Million Subscribers and my guess is if they can get some footing in India and China, the numbers will soar.

Parasprite · Apr 23, 2013

MacRumors said:
[url=http://images.macrumors.com/article-new/2013/04/npd_2012_digital_video_rent.jpg]Image

Notably, NPD's study does not include subscription services such as Netflix and on-demand content from cable providers. Previous studies including those types of content have found Apple's market share shrinking to roughly 5% in the face of Netflix's overwhelming strength.

I'm curious as to what Apple would be at if just Netflix was added but I suppose that would leave out Hulu, etc.

Unless Hulu falls under other, which I doubt but I'm only guessing here.

Nebulance · Apr 23, 2013

EbookReader said:
Previous studies including those types of content have found Apple's market share shrinking to roughly 5% in the face of Netflix's overwhelming strength.

-------------------

damn...Netflix must be huge. $4 billion a year?

yeah, I still use Netflix for my movie and TV rentals. I do find Amazon to be useful though with the cloud player -- and it's great when you buy a movie from them on blu-ray, and it appears there in the cloud too.

Parasprite · Apr 23, 2013

newdeal said:
itunes needs to be split into two, one for media organization alone and the second the store which combines mac, iOS, music, books etc all into one store. Purchases jump from one to the other but taking out the store from iTunes gets rid of the clunkiness.

Is that not what iTunes 11 does already with the "Store <-> Library" button? Unless you mean make it into a separate app entirely. I'm not entirely sure what this would accomplish, unless I'm missing something.

jonAppleSeed · Apr 23, 2013

Haven't spent any additional money since I got my Netflix subscription over a year ago.

D.T. · Apr 23, 2013

So Apple has ~45% for rentals not factoring in Netflix and cable VOD, then it falls to 5%, but I assume there's no other [download] services to compare vs. purchasing, so they'd retain their 65-67%. I wonder what kind of revenue that represents and how it stacks up vs. physical media sales[?]

I'm actually a little surprised at how competitive MS/XBox is vs. Amazon.

RoastingPig · Apr 23, 2013

they got about 3 rentals out of me lifetime

512ke · Apr 23, 2013

Amazon has original content. Netflix has original shows. That's what has made Netflix grow by two million streaming subscribers recently. I predict Apple wont keep up in this area since they don't give consumers a compelling reason to choose their service over rivals. Content is king where eyeballs are concerned.

TC03 · Apr 23, 2013

I think Apple should switch to on-demand pretty fast or this is a dead end. On-demand is the future.

lucas107 · Apr 23, 2013

if only iTunes wasn't a huge pile of garbage on Windows those numbers would be even better

KindredMAC · Apr 23, 2013

In-Theatre Rentals

Apple TV needs to offer In-Theatre rentals of all major motion pictures.

I would set it up where they became available the week or two after opening weekend at a price point of around $40-$50 to rent for a 24 hour period.

Being a married man with a 5 year old, it is tough to get out to the movies to see the blockbusters especially in the summer time with numerous movies coming out week after week.

You figure that by the time my wife and I pay for a babysitter, 2 movie tickets, soda and popcorn we have already dropped ~$60-$80 for the night. Paying even $50 for a rental still saves us money, we are not on any time tables and we can watch the movies from home without having to deal with people's rude behaviors.

milo · Apr 23, 2013

DJJAZZYJET said:
iTunes + Mac = Seamless, beautiful and lightning fast.

Couldn't disagree more. While I like the new iTunes, and it's a bit faster, it's still way too bloated and slow for what it does.

Add in iTunes match and that multiplies the problems by ten. Wasn't this Apple's core business at one point? Why can't they get something as simple as a music player right?

BMNB1tch · Apr 23, 2013

is this slide suppose to make me ignore NETFLIX surging business ?

who "buys" digital content anyway??

stream or gtfo

alent1234 · Apr 23, 2013

BMNB1tch said:
is this slide suppose to make me ignore NETFLIX surging business ?

who "buys" digital content anyway??

stream or gtfo

how do you stream a Pixar movie? where do you stream it from?

iGrip · Apr 23, 2013

Notably, NPD's study does not include subscription services such as Netflix and on-demand content from cable providers. Previous studies including those types of content have found Apple's market share shrinking to roughly 5% in the face of Netflix's overwhelming strength.

In other news, dirt is overwhelmingly the food of choice if one does not include supermarket and restaurant offerings in the study...

Jaredly · Apr 23, 2013

KindredMAC said:
Apple TV needs to offer In-Theatre rentals of all major motion pictures.

I would set it up where they became available the week or two after opening weekend at a price point of around $40-$50 to rent for a 24 hour period.

Being a married man with a 5 year old, it is tough to get out to the movies to see the blockbusters especially in the summer time with numerous movies coming out week after week.

You figure that by the time my wife and I pay for a babysitter, 2 movie tickets, soda and popcorn we have already dropped ~$60-$80 for the night. Paying even $50 for a rental still saves us money, we are not on any time tables and we can watch the movies from home without having to deal with people's rude behaviors.

I absolutely love this idea. I dont know why I have never heard this before but it would be perfect. They could even charge $60-70 and it would be a good deal. Bringing a family of 4 to the movies could cost easily more than that after popcorn and drinks. After apple takes their 30% it has to be about equal to what the movie maker gets after the theater takes its cut. The only problem I can see is how to you prevent somebody from throwing a movie party and showing it to 50 of their closest friends. But I do like the concept.

iGrip · Apr 23, 2013

Everyone loves a winner! (Especially when the winner really has less than 5% of the relevant market).

slffl · Apr 23, 2013

512ke said:
Amazon has original content. Netflix has original shows. That's what has made Netflix grow by two million streaming subscribers recently. I predict Apple wont keep up in this area since they don't give consumers a compelling reason to choose their service over rivals. Content is king where eyeballs are concerned.

If content is king then Netflix and Amazon Prime video would be dead!!! Those services have the most pathetic content of any video service! They are the wal-mart bargain bin of streaming video.

If content was king, then HBO Go and Hulu would have the most subscribers (maybe they do, who knows).

----------

milo said:
Couldn't disagree more. While I like the new iTunes, and it's a bit faster, it's still way too bloated and slow for what it does.

Add in iTunes match and that multiplies the problems by ten. Wasn't this Apple's core business at one point? Why can't they get something as simple as a music player right?

Couldn't disagree more. iTunes and iTunes Match have been perfect and seamless for me. Why can only Apple even come close to creating something like iTunes?

Apple Continues to Dominate U.S. Online Video Purchase and Rental Markets

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