Consumers spent $4.3 billion renting a total of 1.3 billion DVD movies during 2003, up 55 percent from 2002, according to data from Rentrak provided by the Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA), a trade group of retailers and rental firms.
In addition, Adams Media Research estimates that consumers spent more than $12 billion buying DVDs in 2003—or 17 DVDs per player—an increase of 46 percent from 2002 totals. The group reports that more than one-half of all U.S. households now own a DVD player.
This growth is also reflected by Netflix, an online DVD rental service that delivers movies through the mail. It announced that it ended 2003 with a total of 1,487,000 subscribers, an increase of 74 percent over its total at the end of 2002. The figure also represents a 15 percent increase over the number of subscribers reported at the end of the third quarter of 2003.
In December, Netflix revised its 2003 subscriber projection upward, saying it expected to count between 1.47 million and 1.495 million subscribers by the end of the year.
For information, visit: www.netflix.com.
