rental share of world revenues increases

Source: Screen Digest

Rental share of world revenues increases for the first time
After years of decline, worldwide rental revenues bucked the trend and increased their share of worldwide spending on video software by half a percentage point in 2008 to 32 per cent. This growth was driven by an upturn in rental’s share of spending in Japan and North America – and happened despite the sector’s continuing decline in Europe. The upturn in rental activity in the US was driven by strong growth in both online subscription rentals (dominated by Netflix) and rental kiosks (e.g. through Coinstar’s Redbox-branded machines), as well as by the emergence of a BD rental business. Meanwhile the continuing importance of rental in Japan – and the comparatively lacklustre performance of the sector elsewhere – means that the country now accounts for 26 per cent of worldwide rental spending, up from 18 per cent a decade earlier. With consumers in the world’s two largest video markets continuing to spend on rental, Screen Digest expects the global rental sector to increase its share by another 2 percentage points in 2009, to 34 per cent of all video software spend. However, with rental’s star now firmly in decline in Europe, this is unlikely to herald a more widespread resurgence in the sector.