Disney: 125,000 iTunes Movies Sold In 1 Week

[MacRumors]

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Disney CEO Rob Iger today announced that Disney has sold over 125,000 movies through the iTunes Movie store in the past week alone, totaling $1 million in revenue. In addition, Iger said the company expects over $50 million in revenue over the first year of the program.

During last week's Showtime event, the long-rumored "iTunes Movie Store" debuted (now termed "iTunes Store") with 75 films from Disney-owned subsidaries. A successful launch may increase pressure on other studios still holding out on Apple's buy-to-own terms.

[spicyapple]

Wow. Good news for Apple and the future of the iTS in getting more studios on board.

If Apple can just convince studios to release movies in 720p and 1080p formats, it would kill off the blu-ray / HD DVD rivalry once and for all.

[stoid]

So, new movies this week? or do we have to wait until next?

[dizastor]

imagine how good it would be doing if they had more than disney on board.

[berkleeboy210]

Good, Now lets have some more studios come on in, and just maybe i'll buy the 80gb ipod

[puckhead193]

I wonder if these people are buying one to "test it out" or are buying multiple movies.

[dernhelm]

In addition, Iger said the company expects over $50 million in revenue over the first year of the program

Hmm. Lets see $1M in a week, 52 weeks in a year, yup - that's about $50M. Wow - that dude is a genius!

[mkrishnan]

Looking at some financials, I think Disney sells on the order of 100M DVD units per quarter, which comes out to about 7-10M units per week? 125k units through the online channel in one week isn't so bad. If they hit their $50M revenue target, that means they will see sales on the order of 1% of total home video sales? That's a fair start.

[supermacdesign]

Studios are scrambling and re-evaluating there offers right now to get on board.

[andiwm2003]

1mio for 125000 movies. so they make an avaerage of $8 per movie. iTS sells them for about $10-$12.

so it seems apple makes about 2-3 bucks per movie (minus the bandwith/server cost).

i wonder if the movie business is profitable for apple or if it's merely to promote iPod's iTV and Mac's.

[RichP]

Originally Posted by puckhead193

I wonder if these people are buying one to "test it out" or are buying multiple movies.

I concur. 1 and 3 months out will really tell how this service fares.

So far though, it is a good start.

[aftk2]

This is fairly remarkable, considering that the really only viable place to watch these movies is on an iPod! Yes, you can watch it on your iMac, or on your television hooked to a Mac Mini, but really, the set top box (iTV) can't come soon enough! Furthermore, this is really the kind of content that lends itself to the TV, rather than the iPod (Disney movies that parents put on replay for hours on end.)

Of course, maybe these stats are dominated by those who wanted to watch Coyote Ugly on the train, on their way to work ;-) .

[Macnoviz]

During the meanwhilst, any news from Amazon Unbox ?

How well did they do?

Because it's easy to throw numbers at us, but withouth any comparison, it doesn't really say that much (although it's probably very good)

[guzhogi]

Originally Posted by dernhelm

Hmm. Lets see $1M in a week, 52 weeks in a year, yup - that's about $50M. Wow - that dude is a genius!

Just wait. I have a feeling that once people get used to buying movies off of iTS, they'll convince all their friends to buy more movies and those friends would convince their friends and so on. I wouldn't be surprised if they sell 50m w/in 9 months. Hopefully, people will like the movies.

I hope that the iTV would someday get DVR capabilities like saving episodes on TV. Also, I'd like iPods to have radios & Airport built-in too.

[spicyapple]

I have an idea:

Sell Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest in a High Definition format to test the waters. I think a lot of people would buy it in HD since they already have computers capable of decoding it. Why the need to invest in an expensive HD DVD player?

[rikers_mailbox]

I bought a movie (Good Will Hunting) to try out the whole shabang and see the quality for myself. The 1.5Gb download took 6+ hours on my crappy adelphia cable modem (it feels slower every day, what am I paying 50 bucks a month for again?). I was satisfied with the image quality on my 20" Dell widescreen, but sitting at my desk to watch a movie instead of my couch isn't the movie experience I'm going for. Sadly, I probably won't be buying another iTunes movie.

Not that anyone cares.

[dsnort]

Originally Posted by stoid

So, new movies this week? or do we have to wait until next?

Probably at the same time as the Merom MBP.

I bought one, just to test. Wasn't bad, would buy more if they add a title I want.

[n-abounds]

That's really good. I was wondering when we'd get the results of the Movie Store.

It'd be interesting if there was a way in which we could see if DVD sales were down for those movies due to the Movie Store. Doubt there's a way, but I still have a feeling that these were impulse buys beause people just say them there, and it's not like they were planning on running out to Target or somewhere to get them.

Personally, I bought Good Will Hunting and Shakespeare In Love. Have yet to watch SIL, but I was very pleased with the clarity of GWH. Too bad my iBook 1.07GHz can't really keep up...and it ran out of juice in the last thirty seconds ;(

My computer is 3.5 feet from the end of my bed, so it'll be perfect to watch from there on my soon-to-be-delivered 17" iMac. My TV is 20" and is higher up but to the left of my bed. I live in an apartment with flatmates, so I have a lot of stuff in my room.

[liketom]

thats good now release the service world wide ! and see how many they get

[x86isslow]

I bought The Sixth Sense. Was a good experience. I'd buy again*.

*Now they just need to get a wider selection.

[ctachme]

Considering that the iTS is like the 5th biggest music vendor, they sure suck at selling movies. 125k is nothing compared to real movie vendors.

Maybe when they get more than 75 movies. Amazon unbox started with like 2000 movies!

[HecubusPro]

Originally Posted by Macnoviz

During the meanwhilst, any news from Amazon Unbox ?

How well did they do?

Because it's easy to throw numbers at us, but withouth any comparison, it doesn't really say that much (although it's probably very good)

That's what I was going to ask. I'm very curious to see how Unbox has done, particularly since it launched a week earlier.

[mcarnes]

How long would it take to download a two hour 1080p movie?

[luminosity]

just depends on your connection.

some people have extremely fast connections, of course, and others are still on the horse and buggy.

[dsnort]

Originally Posted by mcarnes

How long would it take to download a two hour 1080p movie?

It took my Black MB about 70 mins to download "Deuce Bigalow". This was over a decent but not great motel WiFi setup, and I was downloading some other stuff for about half the time.