Disney: 4 Million iTunes Movies Sold

[MacRumors]

Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that Disney CEO Robert Iger announced today at the Digital Hollywood Media Summit that the company has sold 4 million movies on iTunes since the movie store launched in 2006, along with 40-50 million videos.

The site extrapolates that the total revenue from these sales is just under $123 million USD. Disney recently announced a $1 billion digital sales goal for 2008, which includes revenue from advertising online (i.e. ad revenue from online video viewing or from any of its sites), subscriptions to online games, downloads of movies and music, and e-commerce that is not related to its theme parks.

For perspective, Disney had sold 1.3 million movies by February 2007 after 3 months of the iTunes movie store being in operation.

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[TheSpecialist]

Good news, I guess the movies being sold didnt do so bad afther all! Although I could see this number rise even more when they give the other countries like mine (The Netherlands) the option to buy and rent movies. I would love to do this, but are not given the choice!

[Peace]

4 million X 17.99 ( avg. cost of a movie on iTunes ) = $73 Million

40M Videos X $1.99 = $89 Million

This equals about $ 160 Million

Numbers don't add up.

[twoodcc]

great news! hopefully more movie studios will join now!

[theheadguy]

Originally Posted by twoodcc

great news! hopefully more movie studios will join now!

Precisely. The video side of the iTMS is good, but not great... It's been long enough. They [studios] need to get moving with the future of digital film distribution.

[OllyW]

Originally Posted by Peace

4 million X 17.99 ( avg. cost of a movie on iTunes ) = $73 Million

40M Videos X $1.99 = $89 Million

This equals about $ 160 Million

Numbers don't add up.

Disney doesn't get the full amount from each sale. I think the $123 million is probably what they recieve after Apple takes it's cut.

[roland.g]

Some people just get that digital is the way to go. And others still believe in rental only. Every studio that is on iTunes should be offering rental and purchase. People do want to own.

[fastbite]

Good numbers, now start releasing content in the rest of the world. I want movies!!!

[Morky]

I bought an Apple TV and love it. There aren't that many rentals available yet, but the quality of what's available is generally high. There is no shortage of movies I haven't seen and want to watch, and more are added every day. This differs from Cable VOD, which generally offers short lists of crap movies, plus HBO has apparently jumped the shark and offers nothing. Throw in TV show purchases, my iTunes music playing through my stereo, and my Handbrake-ripped DVDs available in a quickly accessible list, and it makes for a pretty compelling product.

The sales figures presented are what I would expect. Why would I buy a lower quality version of a film with uncracked DRM instead of a DVD? However, it is rentals that will make or break the movie store. The jury is still out, as the Apple TV has to make it into a lot of homes to make a dent in this market. That is, unless more people like renting to watch on a Mac/PC than I think actually do.

[milo]

Originally Posted by OllyW

Disney doesn't get the full amount from each sale. I think the $123 million is probably what they recieve after Apple takes it's cut.

Plus sales of full seasons are at a discount from the individual price.

[milo]

Originally Posted by Morky

The jury is still out, as the Apple TV has to make it into a lot of homes to make a dent in this market. That is, unless more people like renting to watch on a Mac/PC than I think actually do.

Don't forget the iPod feeding video to a TV (not to mention travelers just watching on iPod), that's how I've been watching my digital content for over a year.

[happydude]

Originally Posted by Morky

I bought an Apple TV and love it. There aren't that many rentals available yet, but the quality of what's available is generally high. There is no shortage of movies I haven't seen and want to watch, and more are added every day. This differs from Cable VOD, which generally offers short lists of crap movies, plus HBO has apparently jumped the shark and offers nothing. Throw in TV show purchases, my iTunes music playing through my stereo, and my Handbrake-ripped DVDs available in a quickly accessible list, and it makes for a pretty compelling product.

The sales figures presented are what I would expect. Why would I buy a lower quality version of a film with uncracked DRM instead of a DVD? However, it is rentals that will make or break the movie store. The jury is still out, as the Apple TV has to make it into a lot of homes to make a dent in this market. That is, unless more people like renting to watch on a Mac/PC than I think actually do.

i'm on the side of "want but don't need" the apple t.v. (as is most everyone, i'm sure) but the "want" isn't strong enough for me to run out and get one, though your description of everything you do is a compelling case. oh what to do . . .

[skellener]

Disney: 4 Million iTunes Movies Sold

Think how much higher that might be without DRM.

[Clive At Five]

Only 4 Million? SAVE DISNEY! Michael Eisner has betrayed the stockholders!

Oh wait, it's 2008.

Way to go, Iger.

-Clive

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by skellener

Think how much higher that might be without DRM.

And if they actually offered anything outside of the continental USA market.

I know at least a dozen people who would buy an AppleTV tomorrow and start buying/renting movies from it, but none of the media companies want to make their stuff available.

I guess I live in some kind of digital backwater third-world country .... oh, wait ... I live 20 minutes from the US border in one of the world's largest free-market democracies.

[FCPnewbie]

So ummm.... is 4 million a good thing? What are DVD sales like over the same period?
I've never bought a movie through iTunes and don't plan to until they sell HD titles. Are they doing that yet? I haven't been paying attention.

[stagi]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3A109a Safari/419.3)

4 million dosent seem like that big of a number. I think for more studios to come on board they need to do better than that.

[Stampyhead]

Originally Posted by OllyW

Disney doesn't get the full amount from each sale. I think the $123 million is probably what they recieve after Apple takes it's cut.

And Disney movies on iTunes are usually $14.99. I don't even know where he got the number $17.99. I've never seen a movie on iTunes that high.

Originally Posted by stagi

I think for more studios to come on board they need to do better than that.

I think for them to do better than that more studios need to come on board...

[milo]

Originally Posted by stagi

4 million dosent seem like that big of a number. I think for more studios to come on board they need to do better than that.

Based on what, just your gut reaction? How many movie downloads did iTunes' biggest competitor sell last year?

[Bonte]

This is bad news, sales are slowing down. 1,7 million the first 3 months and 4 million in 15 months is a drastic slowdown. No wonder Apple is now renting movies.

Price is to high, make it $5 and it would be tenfold.

[quinney]

Originally Posted by twoodcc

great news! hopefully more movie studios will join now!

At least now they should be able to estimate how much
revenue they are forgoing by NOT having films on iTunes.

[rtdunham]

Originally Posted by happydude

i'm on the side of "want but don't need" the apple t.v. (as is most everyone, i'm sure) but the "want" isn't strong enough for me to run out and get one, though your description of everything you do is a compelling case. oh what to do . . .

add to that this user's having all my music and photos on the AppleTV, too.

That means i can play my iTunes music through the house's best sound system. I can view my iPhoto albums on a 61-inch screen.

And when the system's resting my more than 10,000 photos shuffle across that big display's real estate via a screensaver, with huge images and bold colors moving artistically cross the screen. Iimages pop up to remind me of family events decades ago (the family's archive of pre-digital photos scanned and added to my iPhoto library), exciting trips, emotional moments. Factoring in the ease-of-viewing of movie rentals, AppleTV rates as one of the more satisfying Apple products i've bought in the past few years, including the iPhone I'm very pleased with.

[Jacquesass]

I'm with rtdunham - I just bought a 160GB ATV today. I've been steadily ripping my Netflix DVD's four at a time since Handbrake was updated to support AC3 5.1 surround sound.

My plan is to stream music and photos but sync movies. If you option-drag movies into iTunes they are added to the library (and synced to ATV) without being copied into my iTunes Music folder - so they are going to live on a spare external HD and not take up internal drive space. When I want to free up space on the ATV, just delete the movie from iTunes - and I don't have to delete the original file if I don't want to.

This will let me have 40-50 movies (at DVD quality w/ surround-sound) at all times available from my home theater. No streaming, no cost (above what I was already paying Netflix), no rental limits. I foresee dropping my Netflix membership to the 2-at-a-time plan when the ATV is full - and maybe dropping all of my DirecTV movie channels. If I want to see the latest blockbuster in full-HD, I'll just rent it.

And, like rtdunham said, this doesn't even include streaming music (either through ATV or via AirTunes)...

[morespce54]

Geez, that's quite a bit.
Let's hope others will finally join.

and who knows, maybe one day Canada iTMS will have movies too!!!

[andiwm2003]

Originally Posted by Jacquesass

I'm with rtdunham - I just bought a 160GB ATV today. I've been steadily ripping my Netflix DVD's four at a time since Handbrake was updated to support AC3 5.1 surround sound.
.........................................
This will let me have 40-50 movies (at DVD quality w/ surround-sound) at all times available from my home theater. No streaming, no cost (above what I was already paying Netflix), no rental limits. I foresee dropping my Netflix membership to the 2-at-a-time plan when the ATV is full - and maybe dropping all of my DirecTV movie channels. If I want to see the latest blockbuster in full-HD, I'll just rent it.
....................................

umpf..isn't that stealing the movies? i mean, aren't you supposed to BUY the movies that you keep, not RENT?