![]() ![]() Netflix had "probably been running this service for quite some time now as a loss leader" out of "brand loyalty to their consumers," said David Craig, clinical professor at University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. That shift enabled the company to expand globally.Īnd with fast broadband and mobile internet now blanketing not just the United States but much of the planet, DVDs had long been a declining business for the company.ĭVD revenues had fallen to $146 million last year - out of $13 billion total US revenue - and down from $182 million the previous year.Īnd even the cumulative 40 million unique DVD subscribers over the years is dwarfed by Netflix's global streaming business, which now stands at a record high 232.5 million users. Netflix, which dominates the streaming market, began life in 1998 as a US-only DVD-by-mail rental company, taking on the then-mighty movie rental giant Blockbuster, before dipping into video-on-demand as a perk for its customers. "To everyone who ever added a DVD to their queue or waited by the mailbox for a red envelope to arrive: thank you," he added. "We feel so privileged to have been able to share movie nights with our DVD members for so long," wrote co-CEO Ted Sarandos, in a misty-eyed missive. But it also prompted nostalgic reflections among many of the tens of millions of US customers who had subscribed over the past quarter of a century, when plucky upstart Netflix first shipped out a DVD copy of "Beetlejuice" on March 10, 1998.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |