Netflix Grabs 61% of U.S. Digital Movie Market, Apple at 4%

[the vj]

In a year I have downloaded just 2 movies from Apple while my day-to-day is with Netflix, is is way cheaper and good enough.

Actually I do not even have cable or own a TV, I just have my 17" MBP, my basic internet from Comcast and that is enough for me.

 

[bluebomberman]

i was surprised to see that YouTube didn't have the biggest piece of the pie, as tons of video content is streamed by them every second.

Youtube's different. Only a tiny portion of the video they serve up is TV/movie content that is paid for through rentals. If they're included at all, they'll be in the "other" category.

 

[MacManTexas56]

That's one Apple non-sense I still don't get. Perhaps Apple believes that optical media has no future? For example, Snow Leopard installation comes on a USB stick rather than on a DVD, obviously because the MacBook Air has no built-in DVD.

I believe Apple wants the world to be connected and able to access all kinds of content (both personal and public) over the internet.

the future is streaming. If you don't see that, i don't know what to tell you. My wife and I share 1 MBA and have an external dvd burner that was leftover from our old netbook. We have used it ONCE since getting the new laptop...just to load office 2010. We have iphones so there is no need to have a physical cd to play in the car etc since it can be played from the iphone.

How music cd's still exist amazes me. Going to be the same route with dvds in the future. We used to have a ps3, but found ourselves never using physical media as most of the content is available via streaming.

Physical media is very limiting. Streaming can be done from iphones, ipod touches, computers, apple tv's etc.

It's slowly dying and it's a good way to cut costs in the machines when a lot of people that are more tech savvy don't use that old technology anymore.

 

[eah2119]

wow. I sooo wish I could thumb up some of these comments.

 

[MacManTexas56]

It does not suprise me at all that Netflix is killing Apple in the digital movie market. I love my Netflix service and it is very cost effective. For about $15 a month (with tax) I can get one Blu-ray disc at a time and get unlimited streaming. That is a heck of a good deal compared to Apple. Unless Apple changes their business model to look more like Netflix I don't see them ever making a dent in this market.

I don't see how anyone would think Apple's movie downloads are a better value then the Netflix service.

It all depends on your use. almost everyone i know that uses netflix and gets physical media in the mail BARELY watches the movies they get. they end up sitting around or they decided that after the movie came they wanted to watch something else and sent it back etc. My wife and i once went almost 3 months with the same blu ray sitting on the coffee table.

The cheaper option for us....sell off the ps3 and blu ray collection and have an apple tv. Yeah you pay $5/movie, but there are no monthly fees. So if you rent just 1 movie that month it's only $5. With netflix you would be paying $16 etc for blu ray access that you'd only watch once if that. The month or months we go without renting a movie, doesn't cost us anything. Where as with netflix you have that continuous monthly fee.

I have a hard time finding people who actually watch the physical media movies religiously when they get them. And for the streaming on netflix....it's a total joke. How they could offer that up as a service with that bad of content is crazy. When it was 1st available we canceled the blu ray part and did streaming only. We found ourselves searching hours trying to find something decent to watch. And then decided that we were wasting time and having to settle for some random old movie that we didn't want to watch. So that got cancelled.

If you watch tons of content all the time, netflix is a good deal. That's if you prefer messin with the dvd or blu ray's though.

 

[quetzalcoatl]

Who is in "Other" besides Amazon? Any guesses?

Hulu Plus and Blockbuser vod would be 2

^ Optical media is a dying breed. Fact.

Where it might be optical media will still be around as long as streaming can't do the better codexes of audio. And that will not happen until there is much better internet service avail when you consider DTS-HD-MA needs upto 24.5Mbps and that is just for the audio. And TrueHD needs 18Mbps Add 1080p video to it and you need to get close to 50Mbps. And I don't know many people that even have a 25Mbps connection much less a 50.

 

[hofer]

Like you, I prefer the pay-as-you-go model over a subscription, but as I pointed out earlier, Apple doesn't seem to have enough control over what they can put out for rent. Way too many titles are available only to buy for $10 or more. Apparently the Studios, decide when you can rent and when you have to buy, and cycle the titles in and out. It's killing me - and it is killing Apple's business model.

It all depends on your use. almost everyone i know that uses netflix and gets physical media in the mail BARELY watches the movies they get. they end up sitting around or they decided that after the movie came they wanted to watch something else and sent it back etc. My wife and i once went almost 3 months with the same blu ray sitting on the coffee table.

The cheaper option for us....sell off the ps3 and blu ray collection and have an apple tv. Yeah you pay $5/movie, but there are no monthly fees. So if you rent just 1 movie that month it's only $5. With netflix you would be paying $16 etc for blu ray access that you'd only watch once if that. The month or months we go without renting a movie, doesn't cost us anything. Where as with netflix you have that continuous monthly fee.

I have a hard time finding people who actually watch the physical media movies religiously when they get them. And for the streaming on netflix....it's a total joke. How they could offer that up as a service with that bad of content is crazy. When it was 1st available we canceled the blu ray part and did streaming only. We found ourselves searching hours trying to find something decent to watch. And then decided that we were wasting time and having to settle for some random old movie that we didn't want to watch. So that got cancelled.

If you watch tons of content all the time, netflix is a good deal. That's if you prefer messin with the dvd or blu ray's though.

 

[MacManTexas56]

Like you, I prefer the pay-as-you-go model over a subscription, but as I pointed out earlier, Apple doesn't seem to have enough control over what they can put out for rent. Way too many titles are available only to buy for $10 or more. Apparently the Studios, decide when you can rent and when you have to buy, and cycle the titles in and out. It's killing me - and it is killing Apple's business model.

oh yeah i definitely agree. I don't think apple's model is the best by any means. But a lot of it is not their fault. It all depends on the licensing....which seems to be a bigger deal with streaming than the physical media licensing.

 

[spydr]

So Apple should sell out some of that 50 billion in cash and buy netflix.

Too late now - with NFLX costing around $10B, not sure Apple would find it compelling addition to their business model. They instead might bring in their own subscription model, since that is all what NFLX will be in few years. Apple already has access to a lot of the content that NFLX has, they just need to get convinced of the subscription model and convince content providers of the same.

I think I would happily pay Apple $12 per month for unlimited access to their video library. Hell, I would pay $15 PM for their video+audio library.

 

[Slim02]

It all depends on your use. almost everyone i know that uses netflix and gets physical media in the mail BARELY watches the movies they get. they end up sitting around or they decided that after the movie came they wanted to watch something else and sent it back etc. My wife and i once went almost 3 months with the same blu ray sitting on the coffee table.

The cheaper option for us....sell off the ps3 and blu ray collection and have an apple tv. Yeah you pay $5/movie, but there are no monthly fees. So if you rent just 1 movie that month it's only $5. With netflix you would be paying $16 etc for blu ray access that you'd only watch once if that. The month or months we go without renting a movie, doesn't cost us anything. Where as with netflix you have that continuous monthly fee.

I have a hard time finding people who actually watch the physical media movies religiously when they get them. And for the streaming on netflix....it's a total joke. How they could offer that up as a service with that bad of content is crazy. When it was 1st available we canceled the blu ray part and did streaming only. We found ourselves searching hours trying to find something decent to watch. And then decided that we were wasting time and having to settle for some random old movie that we didn't want to watch. So that got cancelled.

If you watch tons of content all the time, netflix is a good deal. That's if you prefer messin with the dvd or blu ray's though.

You do know that the PS3 has a program called Vudu and you only pay for movies you want to rent.. There no mouth fee plus has way more HD (1080p) movies then iTunes.. Apple TV sucks compared to PS3 for streaming.. I can stream ever movie that I have stored on my iMac to my PS3 plus Netfilx and other streaming programs... Apple Tv is a joke... I still take a blu-ray over streaming any day tho.. I like having high quality pic and High quality sound..

 

[milo]

Netflix is doing great with streaming, but I've long suspected that their business model for it is unsustainable. Studios are fine with providing some old content as part of an "all you can eat" plan when it's first getting started and it's not used that widely.

As NF streaming gets bigger and bigger and the studios' content gets viewed more and more (which inevitably will mean that the studios are getting a smaller and smaller $$ per view), the studios will be less and less happy with the deal. They'll either narrow down the available content, or raise the fees to NF which they'd have to pass along as higher monthly fees.

And don't forget that the studios negotiate different deals with every distributor. Another reason to let NF have such a good deal initially likely was at least partly driven by fear that iTunes would take over the entire industry (like it did with music downloads). Even if apple wanted to do EXACTLY the same service as NF, same content and same prices, it's possible (and probably likely) that the studios would never grant the same content at the same prices NF gets it for. And it's possible they wouldn't allow Apple to have any content for an unlimited subscription plan AT ALL. People assume that Apple is stupid and is choosing to avoid video subscriptions, but it's entirely possible that they'd love to do it but the studios refuse to let them. Nobody knows.

I don't see how anyone would think Apple's movie downloads are a better value then the Netflix service.

I don't think that's the reason people get movies from Apple, they do it because Apple has a newer title that's not available on Netflix streaming. Same goes for that one episode of your favorite show you missed that is on iTunes the next day but not on Netflix for a while.

Actually, a video cable is far cheaper. Or a built in app in the TV.

A video cable connected to what? And how many TVs can stream directly from netflix? And what do they cost? If it's a feature only found in really expensive TVs, that's not really a "cheap" option.

 

[MacManTexas56]

You do know that the PS3 has a program called Vudu and you only pay for movies you want to rent.. There no mouth fee plus has way more HD (1080p) movies then iTunes.. Apple TV sucks compared to PS3 for streaming.. I can stream ever movie that I have stored on my iMac to my PS3 plus Netfilx and other streaming programs... Apple Tv is a joke... I still take a blu-ray over streaming any day tho.. I like having high quality pic and High quality sound..

and ps3 is 3 times the price. If you are not using physical media it's overkill. Apple tv does the same thing except vudu plus again it's tons cheaper and tons smaller.

 

[lcm123]

Netflix is doing great with streaming, but I've long suspected that their business model for it is unsustainable. Studios are fine with providing some old content as part of an "all you can eat" plan when it's first getting started and it's not used that widely.

As NF streaming gets bigger and bigger and the studios' content gets viewed more and more (which inevitably will mean that the studios are getting a smaller and smaller $$ per view), the studios will be less and less happy with the deal. They'll either narrow down the available content, or raise the fees to NF which they'd have to pass along as higher monthly fees.

You're not very good with adding/subtraction are you, if the content gets viewed more and more, it means there are more subscribers, and more subscribers means more money for Netflix so Netflix should have enough money to pay for the content. Studios aren't going to demand Netflix for unreasonable money, they don't want to put Netflix out of business cause if they do, how are they going to make the extra money from those movies, they are not stupid.

 

[Slim02]

and ps3 is 3 times the price. If you are not using physical media it's overkill. Apple tv does the same thing except vudu plus again it's tons cheaper and tons smaller.

I already own 4 PS3 in the house and I use Blu-ray first then stream last.. also I can play games too... So there no overkill when you use the PS3 to the fullest.. Before any one ask I have 7 kids so you can see why we have so many PS3..

 

[MacManTexas56]

You're not very good with adding/subtraction are you, if the content gets viewed more and more, it means there are more subscribers, and more subscribers means more money for Netflix so Netflix should have enough money to pay for the content. Studios aren't going to demand Netflix for unreasonable money, they don't want to put Netflix out of business cause if they do, how are they going to make the extra money from those movies, they are not stupid.

and you're not very good at writing

 

[MacManTexas56]

I already own 4 PS3 in the house and I use Blu-ray first then stream last.. also I can play games too... So there no overkill when you use the PS3 to the fullest.. Before any one ask I have 7 kids so you can see why we have so many PS3..

but if you stream only it's 3 times the price of the apple tv=not a good deal. 4 ps3's is overkill any way you put it.

 

[DarwinOSX]

soon apple gets 30% of the netflix subscriptions because they have their app in the app store

No. Netflix has already been told they won't have to pony up 30%.

Apple sells some content but its not even remotely a primary business. But its all Netflix does.
We have a PS3 and XBox 360 in our house. I use the PS 3 for streaming Netflix as well as blue ray and dvd and plug a usb flash in for content I get in other ways. Plus games. Very nice little machine for all the things it does. I'd buy a Roku box instead of an Apple tv if I wanted that sort of device. I'm not interested in buying and downloading movies or paying silly prices to rent them with all the restrictions around them.

 

[lcm123]

and you're not very good at writing

sorry, i got a little too excited there, hehe

 

[milo]

if the content gets viewed more and more, it means there are more subscribers, and more subscribers means more money for Netflix so Netflix should have enough money to pay for the content. Studios aren't going to demand Netflix for unreasonable money, they don't want to put Netflix out of business cause if they do, how are they going to make the extra money from those movies, they are not stupid.

That's not the whole story. It's not just more subscribers, it's that more of the subscribers are downloading as opposed to streaming, and as people get more internet TV boxes and faster connections, more people are streaming and they're streaming more movies per month. When they started streaming, a big reason they got the content so cheap was because studios thought nobody would watch it.

I'm sure the studios don't want to put NF out of business, but they don't want to let NF cannibalize other (per view) streams of income either. People seem to assume that the current system will go on indefinitely or even get better, but there's no guarantee of that.

It just so happens there's an article that agrees with my earlier post, NF's contracts are coming up soon and the studios are not happy with them or likely to renew on the same terms.

http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/03/15/netflix-future-contracts/?_r=true

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/blog-post/netflixs-brick-wall-25501?page=0,0

And bandwidth caps are a whole other can of worms with the potential to put a huge dent in NF.

 

[DarwinOSX]

And for the streaming on netflix....it's a total joke. How they could offer that up as a service with that bad of content is crazy.

It's much better than it used to be and improving all the time. This is the wave of the future for Netfilx and they would like to not have to mail out disks. I pay $11.99 a month for 1 DVD or Blu-ray at a time (not $16) and all the streaming I can eat. Its a great deal. But their entire business model could collapse overnight if internet providers start charging more for streaming their content or the studios charge more for and delay more titles than they already are. Bunch of fossils those studios. They haven't learned a thing from the music industry.

 

[lcm123]

That's not the whole story. It's not just more subscribers, it's that more of the subscribers are downloading as opposed to streaming, and as people get more internet TV boxes and faster connections, more people are streaming and they're streaming more movies per month. When they started streaming, a big reason they got the content so cheap was because studios thought nobody would watch it.

I'm sure the studios don't want to put NF out of business, but they don't want to let NF cannibalize other (per view) streams of income either. People seem to assume that the current system will go on indefinitely or even get better, but there's no guarantee of that.

It just so happens there's an article that agrees with my earlier post, NF's contracts are coming up soon and the studios are not happy with them or likely to renew on the same terms.

http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/03/15/netflix-future-contracts/?_r=true

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/blog-post/netflixs-brick-wall-25501?page=0,0

And bandwidth caps are a whole other can of worms with the potential to put a huge dent in NF.

The amount of hours people watch NF aren't going to be that much more than they've been watching TV's. People have other things to do than just watching movies all day. And besides, you can only watch up to a limited number of movies instantly, depending on which NF package you subscribe to. What difference does it make in terms of bandwidth whether you watch movies through streaming or through your cable TV, they're both coming out from the same wire; maybe some difference but not that much.

 

[McGiord]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Kids, true full HD can be only from a BluRay nowadays, an I mean commercial movies/tv programs without commercials.
Apple buying Netflix will be a disaster for us the consumers. Even Apple customer service is great I don't see them delivering better and better streaming services without significally increasing the prices. Netflix ha proven us that they can get better an better and don't increase the cost for us. Those saying that Netflix selection is bad or not good or incomplete jut want to see dancing with the stras and many other crappy current tv shows. As Netflix increases the availability of HD streaming content less need for discs over the mail, less operating costs and then better services for us the consumers. Any serious consumer that want to see a movie the right way will go to a movie theater or get the blue ray. Having the BluRay availability is a key difference that will keep Netflix in a significant distance from all their competitors. Apple will kill the discs model and that is good only for them(if they bought Netflix).
Google can learn a good deal about Netflix on how they have been so successful I to release the streaming apps to several different hardware devices. I forsee Google buying Netflix instead of Apple.
However the most evil enemy that we have are the ISP and cable providers, they do want to protect their rotten model of selling a package full of crappy tv channels that broadcast infomercials and crappy content.
I hope the opposite happens that Netflix buys some ISP or cable providers and strat teaching the other on how the business should be ran. They were making money with the mail subscription model, and they have added several nice things to become why they are nowadays. Please do not mess Netflix, let them continue growing an developing great services for us.

 

[Ca$hflow]

Netflix stock outperforming APPL

Kinda couldn't help notice but netflix stock has way outperformed apple stocks in the past 12 months. It was at $70 a share a year ago and now its over $280 I think. Kinda neat.

 

[ghostlyorb]

I love Netflix!

 

[montycat]

I really do miss the days of when Apples focus was about computers.